


Singing Gentlemen to Sleep

by SophroniaMiko



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Detective Felix, F/M, Forensics-type discussion of wounds, Gen, Mermaids, Missing Persons, Murder Mystery, Rated A for Annette and Felix's Awkwardness, Urban Legends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26845702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophroniaMiko/pseuds/SophroniaMiko
Summary: The little beach town of Garreg Mach is known for its bubble waffles and murderous mermaid myths, and is usually peaceful. When a quiet young man disappears mysteriously, however, Detective Felix Fraldarius is called in to investigate and finds the line where legends and reality intermingle. He's always followed his own rule--never mix personal and professional life--but there's a girl with ginger ringlets that slips past his defenses. But that's okay, because she could never be a killer.Right?Or: the fantasy mystery romance AU you didn't know you needed!
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 62
Kudos: 51





	1. The Missing

The night air hung hot and thick with salty mist off the harbor. A strong storm had hit the small seaside town of Garreg Mach less than a week ago, and the humidity had been unbearable ever since. During the day the air was thinner and moved more easily through lungs, but at night it was like a hearty seafood soup. The residents had taken to shuttering their windows closed at sundown in the hopes that their houses wouldn’t grow damp overnight and mildew.

Garreg Mach’s beaches were small, but the water was temperate and the sand soft, so the town enjoyed a healthy tourist season. Tonight, though, the westernmost cove was empty, and the moon dark. 

Sand crunched as a man, barefoot, stepped down the stairs of the boardwalk connecting the dimly-lit street and the beach. He breathed deeply, deliberately, as he strode across the sand, his steps halting when he reached the darkened area where the ocean just barely lapped at the land. A wave crashed, sending water scurrying up to meet his feet. When it touched his toes, he curled them, digging into the wet sand. A small glimmer flashed somewhere out in the inky waves, and the man swayed, goosebumps rising on the flesh of his arms. 

He was an outsider—not at all a rare sighting in a sunny vacation town—so it was days before anyone realized he was missing. By then his footprints were long gone.

The mist, however, remained.

—————————————

“Name: Ashe Ubert. Age: twenty-three. Last seen, as far as we can tell, three weeks ago at eight-thirty PM on June third by a local gentleman taking out his trash. No job. No family or friends in the area.” Officer Sylvain Gautier looked up from his notepad, pulling a photograph from the file he held. “We have a picture of him here, supplied by his adoptive father.”

Detective Felix Fraldarius took the photo and stared at it, eyes flitting back and forth as he printed the missing man’s features into his mind. “Forgettable face,” he said, handing it back. “Why was he in Garreg Mach?”

“Unclear, ” Sylvain replied, tucking the picture back in the file. “Locals who recognized him said he had been in the area since mid-March.”

“Did he have any enemies? Four months in one place is long enough to piss _somebody_ off.”

“For you, maybe. According to all reports, Ubert was—er— _is_ a quiet, even-tempered man. A writer. Sensitive. Couldn’t find one person with a bad thing to say about the guy.” Sylvain swiped the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping away a band of sweat that had accumulated. “You’re gonna smoke? Now? It is _way_ too hot for that.”

“Mind your own business,” Felix growled, cigarette dangling from his lips as he slipped his lighter back into his pocket. The detective had a long list of bad habits, among them his penchant for smoking to get his investigative cogs turning. “Who called him in?”

“His sister, Aldea Ubert. She states that the two of them kept in close contact and texted daily. Says his tone was off for a few days before his disappearance, then his messages stopped entirely three days ago. “

“Any history of suicidal tendencies?”

Sylvain shook his head. “None reported.”

“Mental illness in Ubert’s history or that of his family?”

“Zero.”

“Has he ever run off before?”

“Never even played hooky from school.”

Felix took a drag off of his cigarette, his eyes staring into nothing. After a moment, he blinked. “You said he was a writer. Where did he write?”

“Different places, but according to preliminary investigation,” Sylvain flipped through his notes. “He spent a lot of time at a local cafe, The Merrow.”

Dropping the cigarette on the asphalt of the police station parking lot, Felix ground it out with his foot. “Let’s go.”

“Right behind you.” Eager to get moving, Sylvain pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and slid them on his face. “The cafe is on the beach, so don’t forget your sunscreen. I remember how red you got during the dig in April.”

“Red?” Felix repeated, slipping a pair of sunglasses on himself. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Sylvain laughed, self-consciously reaching up to touch his hair, which had been gelled in just a way so as to seem naturally tousled. “Hey, don’t be jealous, man. Just because the ladies are always flocking for some cinnamon—oi, are you listening?”

“No,” Felix replied, opening the car door and pointing to the interior. “Get inside the car and shut up.”

————————————

The parking lot for The Merrow was almost full, and Felix grumbled as he circled, looking for a spot. He finally found one and pulled in, jerking the wheel hard enough to jolt Sylvain against the window. Smirking a little how he’d ruined his partner’s perfect hairstyle, Felix dropped his badge inside his shirt and headed for the cafe’s front doors.

The smell of fried dough and citrus wafted out the door before the two even entered, and Sylvain’s stomach grumbled audibly when it hit him. “I hear the bubble waffles here are great,” he said, looking hopefully at Felix. “If you want to try one, I’ll buy.”

“Focus,” Felix snapped, stepping over the threshold. “What devilry is this?” Decorative fish nets hung from the cafe’s door frames, and Felix swiped at them, trying to prevent them from brushing his face. 

“Don’t fight it; just walk through,” Sylvain instructed, pushing the other man through before he caused permanent damage to the decor.

A chorus of female voices welcomed the two when they finally made it into the eatery, and Felix glanced their direction. Multiple young women busied themselves around the counter area of the spacious cafe, some tidying up, and others operating various machines in the food prep area. Sylvain responded cheerfully, full flirtation mode activated. Leaving his partner to order food and charm the staff, Felix crossed his arms and turned to walk about the dining room, taking note of the layout. 

The cafe’s interior was mostly light wood, weathered to round, comfortable edges. Nets and ceramic fish hung from the ceilings, and the walls were crusted with seashells. The room had two other doors aside from those through which he’d just entered, one of which presumably led to the kitchen, and one of which was labeled with a painted mermaid holding a sign saying ‘to beach access’. Two enormous fish tanks teeming with tropical fish flanked the latter door, their occupants drifting languidly around plastic seaweed and colorful, bobbing mermaid figurines. 

These weren’t the only mermaids, by far—Felix squinted as he looked around, finding mermaid memorabilia on every surface. Even the bench seats on the front window wall were painted with mermaids, and appeared to have been recently scrubbed. The smell of antiseptic was just detectable under the heavy waffle aroma, and became stronger the closer he wandered to the benches.

He tucked that detail away in his mind. Perhaps this cafe was a shining example of proper restaurant sanitation. Perhaps they’d been scrubbing blood splatters off of the sea-foam-colored fabric. Hard to tell.

He bent over to examine the chairs arranged around one of the tables. They were shaped like fish tails and, like the benches, they were well-worn but spotless. 

“Looking for something?” An unfamiliar voice broke into his thoughts, and he looked up to find a young woman with long, plaited hair and green eyes holding a broom and watching him. Her teal t-shirt bore the cafe’s name and logo on the front, and a name tag pinned to her khaki shorts said ‘Ingrid’. _An employee_ , Felix thought. _Is she just curious or trying to stop me from nosing around?_

“What’s with all the mermaid crap?” He asked, straightening and jerking his thumb at a painting of three mermaids sunning themselves on a large rock.

The woman’s eyebrows lifted. “You must be new here,” she replied, her voice brusque and clipped. “Mermaid _crap_ is sort of Garreg Mach’s thing.”

“Oh?” Felix crossed his arms again, sensing a lecture coming. 

She drew in a breath, but before she could reply, Sylvain called out from across the room, drawing their attention. “Oi! Come pick out what you want to drink!” Ignoring him, Felix looked back at the young woman, but she was already halfway back to the counter.

He swore under his breath. “I don’t care,” he called back to Sylvain. “Pick something!”

“Anything?”

“Just pick something normal.” Felix was still eyeing the girl from before. She’d approached a middle-aged woman and said something, then the older woman went into the kitchen and disappeared. Some moments later she reappeared, though nothing seemed to have changed and her full attention was now on a register with a broken drawer. 

Sylvain stepped up next to Felix, squinting in the same direction. “You find something? Checking out the cougar?”

“What? No,” Felix replied, tearing his attention away. “Don’t stand so close. Where’s the food?”

“They’re gonna bring it out when it’s ready, so pick a table. Any table.”

“This one is fine,” Felix said, plopping down in one of the benches he’d been scrutinizing earlier. The bells on the front doors jingled as another group came in, and the employees’ voices rose again in welcome. After inspecting the newcomers, Felix nudged his partner under the table. “If you were a writer, where would you sit?”

Sylvain looked around the dining room, resting his chin in his hand. After a moment, he pointed at a table in the corner. “Near the bathroom, so I wouldn’t have to walk far when I had to take a leak.”

“Wrong. You’re an idiot.” 

“What? Well, where would _you_ sit?”

Felix thumped the table with his fist. “Right here.”

“What’s so special about here?”

“See that shadow line? No, not that one. _That_ one. Judging by where it is right now at—” Felix consulted his wristwatch. “—just after two, that shadow will reach this table around seven forty-five. By that time this wall lamp behind me will turn on to keep the light levels stable. If you sit here, you’ll never have to strain your eyes to see your notes. You can easily see the door to watch and monitor people who come in. It’s the last bench so no one can sit behind you and peek at what you’re writing. It’s ideal. Also, no one but you wants to sit near a bathroom. If Ubert came here regularly to write, I’d bet you my nonexistent Christmas bonus he sat here.”

Whistling low under his breath, Sylvain grinned. “What an analysis, as expected of Faerghus’ youngest lead detective. No wonder you’re Chief Catherine’s favorite.” 

“Don’t flatter me like I’m one of your empty-headed conquests. Use that energy to figure easy things out yourself.”

“And so spicy, too,” Sylvain continued. “I bet if you ever smiled it’d break your face.”

“Keep talking and I’ll—what? Oh,” Felix laid his hands back on the table as a young woman approached, carrying a tray of food. Her ginger hair was tied in two little rings, keeping it from trailing into the food.

The woman grinned, the expression genuine to the policemen’s trained eyes. “I’ve got an order for Sylvain?”

“That’s us!” Sylvain gestured to the table. “Lay it on us.”

Placing the tray on the edge of the table, the woman starting put the dishes out one by one. “Here we have a matcha waffle with strawberry and whipped cream. Here is the breakfast waffle—see the bacon? We made it extra crispy like you wanted! Finally here is the nutella waffle with sea salt and sprinkles. The nutella is hot and might fall out the bottom if you squeeze too hard, so be careful.”

Felix glared at Sylvain across the table. “Who exactly is paying for this?”

Sylvain shrugged. “Work expense.”

“We’ve got drinks, too,” The woman said, placing two glasses in front of the men. “Here is the water, and here is a half-pitcher of the special le-mer-nade.” She giggled a little. “Get it? Like—”

“We get it,” Felix interrupted. “Very amusing.”

His response flustered the woman a little, but she recovered, pulling a chair up to the end of their table. “Now I heard _someone_ hasn’t heard the tales of Garreg Mach’s murderous mermaids, and I’m here to fix that. Here at The Merrow we pride ourselves on historical—oh, I’m Annette, by the way,” she said, stopping herself. “I didn’t tell you that before, did I? Silly me!” She turned the chair backwards and straddled it. “How d’you want the story? I’ve got old fashioned oral tradition, shadow puppet theatre, and an interpretive dance.”

“None,” Felix replied stonily.

“All of the above!” Sylvain said, cutting across Felix’s word.

“ _None_ ,” Felix repeated, more forcefully.

Annette looked from Felix’s face to Sylvain’s and back again, her smile falling a little. “What my friend is trying to say,” Sylvain finally said, kicking Felix in the shin under the table. “is none of the above. He wants you to sing it for us.”

Laughter immediately broke out from the other waitresses, who were all listening in with varying degrees of blatancy. Annette’s face bloomed as red as her hair and she grimaced. “Yeah, Annie, sing for them,” another redheaded girl behind the counter called. 

Felix glared at the woman who’d yelled. “What’s so funny?”

“I, uh,” Annette laughed lightly. “I don’t sing. But, seriously, my shadow puppets are killer. I recommend those.”

“Anyone can sing,” Sylvain protested. “It doesn’t have to be Boticelli. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I’m not,” Annette replied. “Really. Just trust me. So what do you say? Shadow puppets? Or if you really want a song, I can get Dorothea...”

Felix, who had poured himself a glass of lemonade while they were talking, took a sip and immediately slammed the glass down. “Is there alcohol in this?”

“Rum, like pirates drink!” Annette informed him cheerfully.

Pouring his glass back in the pitcher, Felix shook his head. “We are on duty, Sylvain. What is wrong with you?” He asked, pouring the other man’s glass back in the pitcher as well. Sylvain protested, but Felix pushed the lemonade to the back of the table. “We don’t have time for this.”

Annette stood up, knitting her fingers together. “I’m sorry; I’ll go.”

“No, you stay,” Felix instructed, tugging on the string around his neck and pulling his badge out from under his shirt. “I’m Detective Fraldarius, this is Officer Gautier, and we need to talk to your staff.” 

The waitresses and kitchen staff went silent at the counter, and Annette’s eyes lingered on the badge before flicking to meet Felix’s gaze. “Let me get my manager,” she said, her voice higher in pitch than before. 

“That would be great,” Felix replied, taking a bite of the matcha waffle. 

————————————

“You’re telling me you don’t find it suspicious at all that the manager didn’t have time to interview today?” Felix asked, halting the car at a red light. “She already had ‘an appointment’?”

Squinting at his partner, Sylvain folded the employee roster they’d received from the manager, Manuela Casagranda, and stuck it into the case folder. “Normal people have appointments, you know. They go to doctors--”

“She didn’t look sick to me.”

“They have _well-person physicals_ , they have dentist appointments, they get haircuts, they have meals with _friends_ \--have you ever heard of a friend, Felix?”

“No.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Turn left here,” he instructed, pointing out the windshield. “We can talk to her tomorrow and you can use all your mind tricks to make her confess that she personally murdered Ubert and made him into sausage waffles.”

With Sylvain’s guidance, Felix pulled into a patch of long, two-story buildings divided into individual flats. The salty smell of the ocean was strong on the hot breeze when Sylvain rolled his window down to peer at the first building. It seemed to be an office; a sign in front read ‘The Lizard Extended Stay Suites’ and featured a colorful cartoon gecko giving viewers a thumbs-up. “What unit was he in?”

“It was…” Sylvain consulted his notes. “Suite 3213.” 

They pulled around a bend and parked in front of one of the buildings. Other law enforcement officers were already buzzing about the place, and one of the upper flats was cordoned off with ticker tape. A woman with long, white hair tied up in a bun and sharp eyes approached the car, walkie-talkie in hand. “Names?” She asked curtly, lavender eyes roving over Felix’s casual slacks-and-button-down combo and coming to rest on Sylvain’s badge, which was peeking out from his khakis. 

“Detective Fraldarius,” Felix said, sticking a hand out. “Faerghus Provincial Police. You must be Captain von Hresvelg with the Garreg Mach Police Department.”

Captain von Hresvelg took his hand firmly, though briefly. “That’s right. Captain Edelgard will do fine. I was talking to your Captain Blaiddyd this morning and told him to tell Chief Charon we had things covered here and didn’t need support from the Province.”

Irritation prickled down Felix’s back, but he kept his face set. “I suppose the Chief thought differently.”

“I suppose so. And you are?” She looked to Sylvain, who was fixing his hair in the car’s side mirror. 

“Officer Gautier,” he said, taking the captain’s hand before she offered it. “I’m Fel--er, Detective Fraldarius’ partner. I’m testing to become a detective myself this autumn.”

Less than impressed, Edelgard jerked her head. “Let me take you up to Ubert’s flat. Hubert!” At her call, a tall, sallow officer raised his head. “You’re in charge of crowd control if the media show up.”

“Understood, Captain,” the officer said, nodding once. 

“That’s Lieutenant von Vestra,” Edelgard explained as they climbed the outside stairs to the second floor of the building. Ducking under tape, she led them to a door on the left, numbered 3213. “He is my second in command, so ask him if you have any questions. This is where we understand Ubert has been living during his time in Garreg Mach.”

The group stepped into the flat, and Sylvain immediately wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”

“A pot of soup was left on the stove, though the burner was turned off.” Edelgard led them to the flat’s modest kitchen. “We scraped out the rotted fish and spinach for the sake of the odor, but the pot is still where we found it.”

“So there’s foul play? Someone who means to go missing usually doesn’t leave food out,” Sylvain said, breathing through his mouth as they neared the empty pot. 

Edelgard nodded. “That’s what we thought at first, too. It gets stranger, though.” She continued past the kitchen and into the bathroom. “His shampoo and body wash are in the tub, and he left a comb, floss, and bottle of cologne on the countertop. His toothbrush is gone, however, as is presumably deodorant and toothpaste. Unless he habitually neglects his personal hygiene and does not own any of these items, they seem to have been taken wherever he went.” 

Leaving the bathroom, she led them into the flat’s one bedroom. The closet was open, and an officer was carefully taking pictures of its contents. Felix narrowed his eyes as he looked around. “There are a lot of empty hangars in that closet. Did you find his luggage?”

“No luggage,” Edelgard shook her head. “Did he throw away his suitcase, intending to stay in this extended stay suite for the rest of his life? Doubtful, but possible.”

Sylvain watched Felix prowl the edges of the room, wrinkling his brow. “So he packed a bag and left...but didn’t know he was leaving? Or was he just too lazy to clean up his supper?”

“He had no car of which we are aware, and the bicycle he used to ride around town is still locked up out front,” Edelgard said. “Wherever he was going, he was going on foot.”

“What’s walking distance from here?” Felix asked.

“Depends on your cardiovascular health,” Edelgard replied, smirking. “Over...here we’ve laid out a map. This ‘x’ is where we are currently. This circle,” she traced a green sharpie circle on the map. “shows where a reasonably healthy individual can walk in fifteen minutes. There’s a convenience store, a beach supplies shop, beach access, ice cream shop, and an empty lot where food trucks usually park. This yellow circle shows where said individual can walk in half an hour. Much more here, as we hit the outskirts of downtown and the shopping district.”

Looking over her shoulder, Felix noted The Merrow at the edge of the circle. “Finally, this red circle shows where said individual can walk in an hour. As you can see, it encompasses most of the tourist areas, though it doesn’t quite reach the edge of town,” Edelgard finished. “Garreg Mach is not a large town, but we have plenty of places to hide or be hidden.”

“Can I take a picture of this?” Felix asked, pulling out his cell phone. 

Edelgard stepped back. “Be my guest.”

After snapping a quick photo, Felix motioned to his partner. “If it is alright with you, Captain, I’d like to come back tomorrow afternoon and do a thorough search of the apartment after we interview some witnesses.”

“We have a compendium of catalogued evidence over here in this file,” Edelgard said, gesturing to a large box. 

Felix resisted the urge to snort. “As thorough a job as your officers are sure to have done, I’d like to have a look around with my own eyes.”

Edelgard shrugged, her face as composed as Felix’s. “Suit yourself. Give me a time and I’ll have the officers clear the premises for an hour or so, as long as you agree that any evidence found will be turned over to us and added to our file. No secrets.”

“Understood. It’s the Province’s intention to work cooperatively, not competitively.”

“Good.” Edelgard smiled, lips tight. “I hope you and your partner enjoy the cottage we secured for your stay as a sign of good will. It’s cute.” The word ‘cute’ sounded odd tumbling out of her mouth.

Sylvain leaned into Felix. “Can I ask her where she’s staying?” He whispered. 

“If you want to become your own missing persons case,” Edelgard replied, her smile now smeared with a savage tinge. “I have excellent hearing, by the way.”

“He disgusts me, too,” Felix said, reaching his hand out to shake Edelgard’s again. “Feel free to keep him here when the case is over; we won’t miss him.”

“We have plenty of problems of our own,” Edelgard answered, though her voice had lost its severe edge. “No need for more.”

————————————

The cottage rented for them was cozy, and a door in the middle divided it into two equal portions, each with its own bedroom and bathroom. This was all the better, as Felix knew from many nights in cheap motels that Sylvain talked nonsense in his sleep, and kicked when startled. After he’d showered, put on a pair of clean pajama pants, and had a smoke on the patio, he sat on his bed, antsy. 

Though the sheets were recently laundered, they had a sort of dampness to them that made it difficult to run his hands across the folded-over lip. Everything in Garreg Mach had that humid beach feel, but the cottage especially so, possibly due the air conditioning only being turned on an hour before they had checked in. 

Felix stood and walked to the window, which he’d left open for fresh air. A palpable wave of humidity was seeping in, causing little droplets of water to bead on the window frame. Outside, he could hear voices from the nearby late-night taco cabana, and someone was humming in the background. 

He shut the window firmly, dropping the latch into place. If Ubert was out there right now, he hoped he was someplace dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for starting this journey with me! I think we're going to have a lot of fun~
> 
> Question for you all: would you rather have shorter chapters more often or longer chapters less often?


	2. The Witnesses

CHAPTER TWO: The Witnesses

The air was drier and the atmosphere lighter the next morning when Felix rolled out of bed, his dark hair in a knot from tossing and turning all night. Irritable, he combed it out in the bathroom and tied it back. The salt in the beach air would help it stay up. 

“Those things’ll kill you, you know,” Sylvain pointed at Felix’s cigarette pack as they waited in line at a coffee shop half an hour later. 

Felix pulled a cigarette out, but didn’t light it. “Cigarettes don’t kill people. I kill people,” he deadpanned.  _ There _ , he thought.  _ And Sylvain says I have no sense of humor _ . 

Sylvain blinked, unsure if his partner was joking or was having another one of his episodes. The latter was more likely, and Sylvain did  _ not  _ want a repeat of last year’s Christmas party, so he shut his mouth until it was time to place his order. “Egg and cheese bagel, no bacon, and a medium americano with a splash of almond milk. What?” He asked, looking at Felix. “I like the nutty taste.”

“Large coffee. Black. No sugar.” Felix plunked a card down on the counter for the cashier to swipe. “And the meat lover’s biscuit.”

The two sat at an outside table as they waited for their food. The little shop was busy, and customers in shorts and swimsuits milled about, waiting for their own caffeine buzz. “How’d you sleep last night?” Sylvain asked, watching Felix light his cigarette. 

“Fairly well,” Felix replied, exhaling smoke. “Though the sheets were damp. Bugger beaches and their humidity, and bugger landlords that leave the windows open and the air conditioning off.”

“Never leave the windows open!” An older gentleman, who’d been sitting on a bench and reading the day’s newspaper, said suddenly. He laid the newspaper down on the table and turned to the officers, eyes bugged. “Especially at night! Close the windows!”

“Yeah?” Sylvain smiled politely at the man. “Why’s that?”

“If you close the windows, you can’t hear the sea witches,” the man explained, as if he were explaining why baking powder worked better in a recipe than baking soda. “They’re takin’ young men an’ eatin’ their hearts! Keeps ‘em young and beautiful!”

Felix flicked a glance at Sylvain, whose mouth was pressed tightly to keep from laughing. “What do you mean ‘sea witches’?”

“Sea witches. Sirens. Harpies. Whatever you want to call ‘em,” the man answered. 

“You’re talking about...mermaids?”

“Sure, that’s a name for ‘em, too,” the man said, nodding. “I call ‘em Sea Witches because they capture their victims with magic an’ devour their hearts. Wretched creatures...an’ judging by this mist I’d say we’ve got a nasty infestation in our waters. Storm brought ‘em in an’ that’s who’s been takin’ our boys. Takin’ ‘em an’ eatin’ ‘em.”

A small giggle escaped out of Sylvain’s nose, and he excused himself to retrieve their orders from the counter before more damage could be done. Felix kept his eyes on the older man. “Taking boys? Who’s been taken?”

“Who? Tons of young lads goin’ back a hundred years,” the man said, shrugging. “Don’t know their names.”

“But none recently?”

“No, not recently. Not yet.” He wagged a finger at Felix. “Mark my words--if they’re here now like I suspect, it’ll happen sooner or later. I’ve been scannin’ the papers every mornin’.”

Felix glanced at the paper on the table. The headlines were all about the recent weather, the upcoming peach festival, and a local musician who’d donated a large sum of money to a children’s hospital. Captain Blaiddyd had said the Garreg Mach PD were trying to keep the case quiet, and it seemed they’d done a good job so far. “What do sea witches look like?” He asked.

The man shrugged. “Who knows? Anyone who’s ever seen ‘em has had their heart eaten. They come from the waters, so they’ve got fish tails, I reckon, seaweed for hair, and long fingers for grabbin’ men. Probably real pretty, too, so the boys aren’t too scared.” He sat for a second, sucking his teeth. “I heard one sing one time. Prettiest thing you could ever hear.”

“If you heard them sing, why didn’t they eat  _ your  _ heart?”

“Because,” the man said, wagging his finger again. “I closed the window! Never leave the windows open!”

————————————

Sylvain laughed hard, giving Felix an unwelcome view of the half-chewed food in his mouth. “He said that? Fish tails and long fingers?”

“Don’t laugh at demented old men. You’ll be one yourself one day.” Felix sipped his coffee, uncomfortably cramped in the driver’s seat of the car. They’d retreated to the vehicle to eat their breakfasts so as to avoid another tirade from the sea witch man. 

Sylvain squinted out the windshield, watching the man read the newspaper. “I think he’s just heard The Merrow’s killer mermaid tales too many times.”

“Huh?”

“The killer mermaids. You remember from yesterday,” Sylvain said, gesturing with his bagel. “The redheaded woman was going to do shadow puppets before you ruined her day.” 

Felix looked blankly at his partner for a moment, then hit the dashboard with his fist, accidentally honking the car’s horn and strewing the front seat with biscuit crumbs. “Goddess  _ damn _ it. I forgot that was a thing in this town.”

“Wait, did you actually believe him?”

“No, I didn’t actually believe him.”

Sylvain slowly bit his bagel, a mix of mischievous and bemused. “You did, didn’t you?” He was a small sliver serious, but mostly just interested in antagonizing his humorless partner. “Tell me that my mentor, my fearless partner, does not believe in mermaids.”

“No! It’s…” Felix rubbed his forehead with his wrist. “Look. All leads are good leads. If someone says sea witches have been stealing young men while we are, in case you haven’t forgotten, in the middle of a case about  _ a missing young man _ , you follow that lead. End of story.”

“Ah, this must be the secret to your success.” Sylvain shoved the rest of his bagel in his mouth and chewed. “So if someone comes up and tells you he saw Ashe Ubert hanging out with Peter Pan the night he went missing, do we go straight to Never-Neverland to look for him, or do we have to get a statement from Tinkerbell first?”

It was too early for a fist fight, and there were too many witnesses. Felix practiced breathing the way he learned from that YouTube video about anger management. In for four counts...out for eight. Repeat. “Who,” he asked finally, opening his eyes. “Is the detective here and who isn’t?”

His jab struck true. Sylvain’s eyebrows rose into his carefully tousled hair. “Oh, we’re going there, are we? You are and I am not, detective Fraldarius, sir. Please, I beg you; pour down your detective wisdom upon my unworthy body that one day I, too, may lick Captain Blaiddyd’s plates when he’s done eating off of them! Maybe then Chief Catherine will notice me!”

“I do not lick Blaiddyd’s plates! You know I hate that guy.” Captain Boar...Felix’s morning was irrevocably ruined now. “He’s a psychopath.”

The two men glared at each other for a long minute, then the corners of Sylvain’s lips pulled up.  _ He’s playing me for a fool again, _ Felix thought, feeling one of his eyes twitch. This man was why he had chronic indigestion. “Take this,” he muttered, shoving the rest of his biscuit in his partner’s hand. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Where are we going?”

Felix shifted the car into reverse and pulled out of the little cafe’s gravel parking lot. “The Merrow. Let’s be a little early for our witness interviews.”

————————————

If Felix was hoping to find the staff of The Merrow in the midst of a last-minute secret meeting plotting their alibis, he was disappointed, for they were all either hard at work or hiding in corners and trying to pretend they weren’t playing  _ Flame Insignia: Heroes _ on their cell phones. The usual chorus of  _ welcome! _ greeted them when they entered, though it was more half-hearted than he remembered. 

A woman Felix didn’t recognize waved them over the counter. He approached, intending to tell her that he wasn’t there for a meal, but she seemed to already know him. “You must be Detective Fraldarius,” she said, smiling at him. 

“And Officer Gautier,” Sylvain added, giving her what he surely thought to be an irresistible wink. 

“We’re not he-”

“I heard,” she interrupted him with a surprising sternness for one having such a kind, serene demeanor. “that you didn’t want to see Annie’s shadow puppet theatre yesterday.”

A familiar, peach-cheeked face popped out from the door that led to the kitchen. “Mercy! Stop it!” Annette protested, grasping the door in embarrassment.

Mercy, if that was her name, ignored her. “Now, obviously I wasn’t there and I don’t know your circumstances, but I just want to let you know that Annie worked for weeks to perfect her shadow puppets. How would you like it if someone was rude about something you had worked so hard on?” Her voice was like craft wire wrapped in flannel; soft, gentle, but firm at its core. 

Felix stared at her, incredulous, but she just looked pleasantly back at him, waiting for an answer. Sylvain, covering his mouth, shifted his weight to watch Felix for a response. 

A clock shaped like a circle of jumping mermaids ticked the seconds by, and the atmosphere grew stormier with every moment. Just as Felix was beginning to sweat on the back of his neck, Mercy’s shoulders were grabbed. A girl with twin tails the color of bubblegum pulled her away from the register, laughing humorlessly. “Al _ right _ , well that is enough of  _ that _ ,” the girl said, stepping in front of her. “I bet someone would love to get these gentlemen’s orders!” She looked around, clearly not intending to do it herself. 

“I just think he should give Annie’s show a try,” Mercy explained, leaning around the girl’s head to make eye contact with Felix again. “I think he’d really like it! What do you say?”

“Mercy…!” Annette groaned from the doorway. “Hilda, do something!”

The twin tailed girl, Hilda, made a small irritated noise in her throat. “You know working with the register chips my nails and...oh,  _ fine _ .” She positioned herself in front of the register, her beaming smile a little strained. “Welcome to The Merrow. Can I take your order? Please make it something easy; I’m trying not to work too hard today.”

So many things were wrong with this scenario. Felix blinked, tilting his head to look pointedly at Sylvain. “We’re not here to order food,” Sylvain began, pulling out his badge.

“Oh, thank  _ goddess _ ,” Hilda sighed, her smile real now. 

“--we’re here to interview the staff of this restaurant regarding a missing individual.”

“No,” Hilda wailed, “That sounds like work...look, I just make smoothies.  I don’t know anything about missing boys. Come on!”

The front door flew open behind the officers, and the manager rushed in, her uniform askew and her hair wet. “Sorry, girls, I overslept and--oh,” she stopped, seeing the two men. “You two are back.”

“What’s going on, Manuela?” A short girl with long, white hair spoke up from where she’d been plating waffles and watching the goings-on at the counter. “Why are the police here?”

Manuela sighed, making her way behind the counter. “It’s not a big deal, ladies. They came by yesterday and asked to speak with us about one of our customers. Just keep working and I’ll tell you when they need you.” She picked an apron off a hook and started to put it on, but stopped when Sylvain cleared his throat. “What, you want to start with me? Oh, for the love of...I haven’t even had my coffee yet! Give me half a minute.”

————————————

“Of course I knew him. He was a very loyal customer. He usually came in around eleven o’clock in the morning and stayed for hours--often until closing.” Manuela nursed her coffee, trying not to act as hungover as Felix suspected she was judging by the way she held her head. The officers had commandeered the staff break room for their interviews, and the fluorescent lights overhead seemed to be personally offending the manager. 

“How often did he come in?” Sylvain asked, trying to avoid noticing the way she was looking at him from under lashes.

She shrugged. “Oh….maybe five days out of seven. Some days he stayed longer than others. Tuesdays. He was always here on Tuesdays.”

“Why Tuesdays?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Did you talk with him often?”

“Never. When I’m in the restaurant I’m usually in my office or out tending the beachfront counter. We only have a few girls old enough to serve the cocktails, so I usually take the lead.” She sipped the coffee and lowered back in her chair, relaxed. 

Felix, who’d been silent thus far, spoke up but kept his eyes on the way she rubbed her thumb along the rim of her cup. “Was Ubert friends with anyone in your staff?”

The rhythm of her fingers stayed steady. “They all liked him, as far as I can tell. His name came up often when they were cleaning after hours. They were very confused when he suddenly stopped coming in, though I don’t think they imagined he was  _ missing _ . I hope you’ll be kind in the way you break it to them.”

Her tone was sincere, tinged with sadness and a hint of distanced curiosity. If she was lying, she was good at it. “We’ll do our best,” Sylvain answered, his tone softening. Felix smirked behind him; Sylvain was still so green. “What did they say about him while cleaning?”

Laughing, Manuela waved her hand. “Girlish gossip, officer. Do you really want me to repeat it?”

“Yes,” Felix replied flatly. “Spare no detail.”

Manuela made a face and went for her coffee again. “Well. They would mention what he’d been writing about that day or what music he’d said he liked. They wondered where he came from, whether or not he had a girlfriend...and they often speculated about what he might look like shirtless on the beach.” She leaned forward to enjoy the discomfort her words brought. “There was talk of ways to get him to go to the beach side of the cafe so they could find out.”

“Did he have admirers?” 

“Among my girls?” Manuela laughed again. “Probably. The young will be young, you know. He was an attractive young man, but too fresh for me. I need a man to be at  _ least _ thirty. Twenty-somethings have no sense. How old are you two, by the way?”

Felix stood, interrupting before Sylvain could answer. “We’re done here. You’re free to go.”

“Who's next?” Manuela asked, pushing her chair back. Her eyes twinkled with mischief, but she refrained from teasing them any further. 

Sylvain, looking a little too pleased, consulted a list. “Hilda Goneril.”

————————————

“Ashe is missing?” Hilda’s mouth dropped open. “Since when?”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Felix countered with a question of his own. 

Hilda rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I don’t know...three weeks? Four? He stopped coming into the cafe all of a sudden and...goddess, I just thought he couldn’t afford the cafe food anymore or something. He’s  _ missing _ ? Is he  _ dead _ ?”

“We don’t have an answer for that, but we don’t have any reason to assume he is,” Sylvain said soothingly. “Were you friends?”

“I guess so. I mean, I didn’t look  _ forward _ to him coming in because he always ordered smoothies and I’m the smoothie captain and I  _ hate _ our blender, but he had...I dunno...a nice smile?” She blinked, still shell-shocked. “I didn’t  _ not  _ like him.”

“How about the other women here?”

Hilda looked up at Felix, who was leaning against the wall. “What about them?”

“Did any of them have any special connections with him? Arguments? Trysts?”

She shook her head. “No way. I don’t think he’s a get-mad kind of guy. As for trysts, I don’t think so. Dorothea probably tried, but she is  _ desperate _ for a boyfriend. Maybe even more desperate than Manuela, and that is saying something. Both of them will probably try to hit on you two, just a warning.”

It was too late for warnings. “Any other details you can think of?”

“About Ashe? I don’t think so. This is scary, you know? Even though we didn’t talk that much...I’ve never known anyone who went missing. If you find him, tell him I won’t complain about making his smoothies anymore.” She frowned. “I guess I feel kind of bad about that now.”

————————————

“Lysithea von Cordelia,” The girl said, her arms crossed in front of her. She looked younger than the other women the officers had seen thus far, but was also the most hostile. “Before you ask, yes, I  _ am _ old enough to have a job. Believe it or not, I’m nineteen, so spare me any child labor law jokes.”

Sylvain blinked at her, surprised. “We aren’t worried about your age. We’re here to ask you about a customer of yours-”

“Ashe Ubert,” Lysithea finished for him. “He hasn’t been here in weeks and I heard Manuela say his name before you called for me. I assume he’s dead?”

She was the second staff member to mention death, Felix noted in his mind silently. “Why would you assume that?”

She turned to look at him, and her eyes were sharp. “You said you were from the Faerghus Provincial Police, correct? If he had committed a crime or simply gone missing, the local police force should be enough to conduct an investigation. If the province is involved, someone must be dead.”

Her tone was confident, but her fingers were knitted together tightly enough to blanche her fingernails. Felix didn’t like the way she studied them, as if she was the one interviewing  _ them _ . Smart civilians made him nervous. This one would make an excellent investigator...or criminal. Sylvain spoke over Felix’s thoughts, echoing what he’d told Hilda. “We have no reason to assume he’s dead. He is only a missing person at this point in time.”

“Oh,” Lysithea said. “Interesting use of your tax money, then.”

She wasn’t trying to bait them, Felix decided, watching her face. She was just one of those people with strong opinions and a naturally abrasive personality. “Did you know Ashe well?”

“Not really. He didn’t interest me.”  
“How often did he come in?”

“Anywhere from four to six times a week, more often in weeks when it rained.”

“Where did he sit?”

“The far bench on the right when you face the front windows, though he sat near the drink machine sometimes as well.”

Felix smirked at Sylvain; that was the bench he’d pointed out on their first visit. “What did he order?”

“A peach smoothie and a regular bubble waffle with honey and candied violets, then black tea every three hours if he stayed all day.”

Sylvain narrowed his eyes. “You know a lot for someone with no interest in him.”

“That’s because I pay attention, unlike some of my coworkers.” Lysithea’s reply was swift. “Anyone who pays attention should be able to answer easy questions like these.” She looked between the two officers and sniffed. “What? You think I’m a suspect? Understandable, I suppose, but false.”

“Did any of your coworkers ever quarrel with him?”

“Never. They all thought he was too attractive to quarrel with.”

“Did you think he was attractive?”

Pink crept into Lysithea’s pale face. “No! Not even a little bit.”

So this was her weakness. Sylvain honed in immediately. “You don’t have to lie to us. We won’t tell.”

“I’m not lying,” she shrilled, putting her fists on the table. “I’m not interested in things like that. He was very average!”

“Who here talked to him the most? Were you jealous?”

“ _ Why would I be jealous-- _ I already told you I’m not--it was Annette, Ingrid, and P-Hilda who talked to him the most.” She was thoroughly flustered now and bit her lip when she finished speaking. 

Sylvain cocked his head, pausing in his writing. “What was that last name? You spoke so fast I didn’t catch it.”

“Hilda.”

“Hilda Goneril? She said she didn’t interact with him much.”

“Well, she did.” Lysithea’s arms were crossed again and her expression was stony. “There. Now I’ve told you everything I know. Any other questions?”

Sylvain smiled at her. “None for now.”

————————————

“Oh no,” the young woman named Dorothea said, her brows inching together. “Not Ashe...he’s such a sweet boy.”

“Did you know him well?”

“Well enough. Better than most customers, anyway.” She sighed. “He was very polite when he came in, which is a nice change of pace from some of our...less savory regulars.”

Felix flipped to a new page in his notepad, interest piqued. “‘Less savory’? Expand on that.”

Dorothea’s mouth quirked in a way that suggested she often complained about this subject and was only too happy to broach it with someone new. “Well. You’ve seen our staff. We’re mostly young women, and if I may say so myself, we are a rather attractive group. I have to fight men away from my Ingrid, and more than one of our ‘admirers’ has gotten a bit...overzealous in the past. It’s gotten better since we hired Claude, but it can still be frightening.”

“Anyone noteworthy in your history of overzealous suitors?”

“Let me think.” Dorothea closed her eyes, resting her chin on the tops of her fingers. Her other hand tapped the table lightly, thumping out a rhythm. “There are two that I would consider ‘noteworthy.’ One of them comes in on Wednesdays and Saturdays without fail, and the other only drops in occasionally, but he is  _ insatiably _ irritating when he does. I started counting, and he has asked Ingrid out  _ twenty-two _ times just this summer!”

“Why haven’t you reported him for harassment?” Felix asked. 

Something like sheepishness drew her eyes to the floor. “I don’t think those two are dangerous, really...just frustrating. If it became a large enough problem, we would call the police.” 

“Did either of them ever interact with Ashe Ubert?”

“Once, about two months ago. Ashe saw one of them interrupting, erm, one of us while she was wiping down tables and stepped in to tell him to let us do our jobs.” She saw their gazes sharpen and held her hands up. “Nothing else happened. He left after Ashe scolded him.”

Felix clicked his pen open. “What was the name of this person? The one Ashe interacted with.”

Uncertainty thrummed in Dorothea’s eyes, and for the first time she hesitated. “Is...is the name necessary? I don’t think anyone deserves to get in trouble over what happened.”

“How do we know that he didn’t go home and plot revenge on Ubert, who had humiliated him in front of a woman he liked?”

Nodding, Sylvain hummed his agreement. “People have done worse for sillier reasons.”

When Dorothea didn’t speak, Felix sighed irritably and leaned forward. “We need that name.” He didn’t want to mention obstruction, but he would if he had to.

She relented before he resorted to legal threats. “His name is Lorenz Gloucester. I truly don’t think he means any harm. He’s just a rich, spoiled, upper class sort of man that hasn’t been told ‘no’ enough in his life.” Dorothea scoffed. “We have more than a few of those types here in Garreg Mach. I can’t stand them, personally.”

“I take it Ashe wasn’t that kind of person,” Sylvain asked, noting Lorenz’s name in his notepad. 

“Not at all. I don’t know the details of his life, but I feel like he’s had it rough at one time or another. He had a lot of sense, which people who have been pampered their whole lives tend to run short on.” 

Felix nudged Sylvain under the table, and he closed his notebook in response. “Out of curiosity,” Sylvain asked, “what do you think happened to Ashe Ubert?”

“Well.” Dorothea was looking at the floor again. “Naturally I don’t know for sure, but...I’d like to think he just...went somewhere else. Maybe he wanted to start over. I don’t want to think anything bad happened to him, so until there is evidence to make me think otherwise, that’s the story I’m sticking to.”

Felix’s mouth thinned. Images of cases he’d worked on flashed through his mind...greed, corruption, lust, murder. Happy endings were a beautiful ideal, like a soap bubble shimmering in sunlight just before popping. “I hope you’re right.”

————————————

“No, there’s no ‘k’ at the end,” Annette explained, leaning over the table to watch Sylvain write. “Just ‘c’. Dominic. Like optimistic. Or arsenic.”

Felix glared at her until she sat back down in her chair properly. She quailed a little under his gaze, but held eye contact with him either defiantly or obediently--he couldn’t tell. “I know what’s going on,” she offered when no one spoke. “Mercy told me our customer Ashe is missing.”

“Did she now?”

“Well, she--she said you never told her it was secret, so it was okay if she told me. Right?”

The officers had instructed Manuela at the start that everything regarding the case was to be considered confidential and kept to themselves, but the manager clearly hadn’t shared this information with her staff. Felix would have been disappointed, but his faith in humanity had been scraping rock bottom ever since he’d joined the police. Very little disappointed him now. “I’ve heard from sources that you and Ashe Ubert were close.”

Annette’s brow wrinkled. “Close? That’s a little...I like talking to him. He’s a writer--you probably already know that, don’t you--and he writes the kind of books that I like.”

“What sort of books are those?” Sylvain asked.

“Books about...classic heroes, I guess. The kind of heroes that do the right thing no matter what and never compromise their values in the face of danger.” Her hands were under the table, but they could tell she was either wringing her hands or worrying the edge of her shorts. “Sometimes the heroes he described were a little  _ too  _ perfect for me to believe. But even that can be refreshing every now and then.”

“Did he ever mention anything to you that would suggest he was leaving or in trouble?”

She shook her head, and her little hair rings bobbled. “Never. I was wondering why he’d stopped coming in to write, but he’d never given me a phone number or any way to contact him, so that was that. One time he wrote me a poem and signed it so I could sell it on the internet when he becomes famous, but that’s...um. That’s all.”

She lapsed into silence and Felix’s intuition stirred. Listening to her speak, it seemed that she was the sort of person who found it hard to stop talking once they’d begun. Those sorts of people were useful when there was hidden truth to uncover, but trying on the nerves. 

Then again, every sort of person was trying on Felix’s nerves.

“What sort of person was the Ashe you knew?”

Annette tilted her head a little, maybe trying to figure how this kind of question fit into a police investigation and what she could say that would be useful. “He’s...sorry, it’s hard to condense people into a sentence or two...he’s...gentle? I don’t think he’d ever hurt anyone on purpose, but he also has a kind of...chivalry about him? If a shark were coming for you, he would definitely swim in front of the shark and be the one bit instead of you. Is there a better word for that?”

“Gentlemanly?” Sylvain suggested.

“Sort of,” Annette said agreeably. “He’s like...he would have been one of the Knights of Seiros back a thousand years ago. But not like Jeritza the Death Knight. A nice knight, like Alois the Laughing Knight.” 

Felix wanted to keep her talking. “Who did Ashe talk to most here?”

“He talked to all of us at one time or another, but he mostly talked to me, Ingrid, and--er,” She paused for a second, her pupils dilating. “Dorothea. She hit on him sometimes but he never seemed to realize it.”

The two officers shared a small glance. “Not Hilda?”

“Hilda?” Annette was fiddling with her fingers under the table again. “Not really. Though she did try to talk him into making his own smoothie once. She said she wouldn’t charge him for it if she didn’t have to make it for him, but Ingrid said she couldn’t do that ‘cuz it’s probably illegal...or something.” She swallowed hard, remembering who she was talking to. “I swear, she stopped it before it happened! Don’t take us to jail!”

Sylvain chuckled, but Felix kept his eyes on Annette’s face. “One of your colleagues mentioned that the staff has trouble sometimes with male customers harrassing them. Do you recall any of these incidents?”

Seeming pleased with a change of topic, Annette tapped her chin. “Male customers...male custo--was it Dorothea? Was she talking about Ferdinand?”

“Ferdinand? Does he have a surname?”

“Von Aegir. His father is a big shot at some company in Adrestia, or so he says. Dorothea calls him Flirty Ferdie. He comes in twice a week and drives us all a little batty.”

“Does he harass the staff?”

“No, he’s more…” She puffed out her chest and made a face, lowering her voice. “ _ I am Ferdinand von Aegir! Anyone should be honored to be invited to have coffee with me! Blah blah blah! Make me a waffle full of strawberries cut into flower shapes that I’m not going to pay extra for! _ ”

An unfamiliar desire--the desire to laugh--twinged near Felix’s belly button, but he squashed it with practiced control. Sylvain suffered no such compunction, however, and laughed until Annette’s face was quite pink. “This makes me sad we missed the shadow puppets,” Sylvain said when he’d caught his breath. 

“You should be!”

Felix cut across the growing camaraderie, eager to return the conversation to its purpose. “We were told there is a troublemaker named Lorenz Gloucester who had an incident involving Ashe. Could you tell us about that?”

“Oh, Lorenz...he…” Annette sobered, thinking hard. “He’s a problem for sure, but I don’t remember him ever interacting with Ashe.” When Felix’s eyes narrowed, she quickly added: “That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, though. It may have been on a day I wasn’t working. He tends to come in early in the week, and I don’t work on Mondays or Tuesdays.”

“Can you tell me more about him? Does he seem like the type to fight with Ashe?”

“Fight? Lorenz?” Annette winced. “I don’t think so, and Ashe would probably win if they did. Lorenz is just...really persistent. He bothered Dorothea so much we had to change her work schedule so she wouldn’t be here when he came, and then when he started coming in on different days, we started hiding Dorothea in the kitchen.”

Sylvain frowned. “Does he wait for her after work?”

“No. He’s asked what time she gets off work, but she didn’t answer, and when we went home at the end of the day, he wasn’t around. We looked, just in case.” 

“No one likes men who won’t take no for an answer,” Felix said, mostly for Sylvain’s benefit. “We’ll keep him in mind. Anything else you can think of that might help us find Ashe?”

Annette frowned, her round face taut, like she had more words in her throat. “No...no. I just hope...he’s okay.”

————————————

“She’s the weak link,” Felix said later, when they’d sat back in the car and closed the doors. “Annette.”

Sylvain pursed his lips, flipping through the pages of notes he’d taken during the interviews. “What do you mean ‘weak link’?” 

Felix gestured vaguely out the windshield at The Merrow, which had become busy with the lunch rush. “This place is suspicious. I think they know more than they’re saying, and I think she’s the weakest link in the chain.”

“How can you possibly say that those interviews were suspicious? They all seemed like very normal people to me. Annette may have even been the  _ most _ normal. That’s probably why you think she’s strange.” Sylvain threw his notepad gently into Felix’s lap. “Not to mention we’ve only interviewed half the staff. It’s a little trigger-happy to instantly suspect the only people we’ve talked to about the case.”

“I’ve read the case files, just like you did, or should have. I’ve read pages of interviews conducted by the GMPD, and I’ve found nothing more than baseless conjecture and dead ends.” Felix picked up Sylvain’s notepad, thumping it against the steering wheel. “There’s something going on here and we need to go deeper.”

“If you want, I can go back in and check their freezer. Maybe Ashe is there.” Sylvain reached over, plucking his notepad back from his partner’s fingers. “I can get a sample of their ground meat while I’m at it, so we can test the DNA. Any barber shops nearby to check for trap doors?” 

“You’re not as cute as you think,” Felix spat. 

Sylvain  _ tsk _ ’d, sliding his sunglasses on to block out the noon sun. “I’m adorable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful people! It's spooktober and the perfect time for a murder~
> 
> machiroads: Felix takes himself way too seriously. He was BORN to be a noir detective in a moving picture being shown in a smoky theatre where the screen has velvet curtains
> 
> Sam: HOHOHO YES LET US SCREAM TOGETHER
> 
> LunaClefairy: No Netflix (edit: apparently Netteflix is a shipping term I do not know; I thought it was misspelled Netflix like a TV show crossover. Yes there is Felix x Annette.) I'm sorry :( But everything else yes! Thanks for reading!!


	3. The Other

CHAPTER THREE: The Other

“He’s not half bad at writing,” Sylvain mused as he riffled through one of the notebooks on Ashe’s desk. His voice was an appropriate volume, yet it somehow fell flat in the apartment, like the space knew to whom it belonged and resented the intrusion of outsiders.

The former living spaces of the dead always felt this way--felt hollow, unwelcoming. If Felix were a superstitious man, he’d take this feeling as an omen, but he was a man of evidence and reason, and so pushed such thoughts aside. Ubert was probably alive, based on the available evidence thus far. He didn’t care either way, he told himself. His job was to find the truth, whatever that truth may be, and shine the cold spotlight of justice on it. Getting involved in the feelings and lives of the investigated was a mistake; a rookie one.

Be that as it may, even he hated when a case switched from missing persons to homicide investigation. 

When Felix didn’t answer, Sylvain continued speaking, mostly to himself. “I’m three pages in and I already want to find this guy just so he’ll continue the story.” 

“I didn’t know you could read,” Felix muttered, running his gloved hands along the bottoms of the drawer in the bedside table to check for false bottoms. When that proved fruitless, he ran his hands along the baseboards in the bedroom, pushing a plushy amaranth-colored chair out of his way.

“Ha ha,” Sylvain shot back. “There’s more than stories in these notebooks. I’m going to check the files and see if they recorded all of the lists and notes he wrote in the margins.” Captain Edelgard had emptied the apartment as she’d promised in order to give the provincial officers time to search it thoroughly, so Sylvain’s footsteps echoed in the still air as he left the room. 

Felix abandoned the baseboards, flopping into the plush chair and frowning. Nothing. They’d found nothing, or at least nothing new. Contrary to his expectations, the GMPD had done an excellent job of cataloguing the flat and everything inside. Captain Edelgard ran a tight ship, and her officers, though few in number and inexperienced, were efficient.  _ What are we missing?  _ He pondered, staring at the patterns in the wood of the bedside table.  _ There’s always a weak spot...a loose thread to pull that will unravel the whole case.  _ He usually found the loose thread faster than this, especially when the case was already halfway investigated before he even arrived. Having little to go on made him irritable, as did this uncomfortable chair. The legs must be uneven, or the cushion poorly constructed, because it was impossible to sit in without his hips being at a slant. 

He rose and followed where Sylvain had gone, and found his partner cross-legged on the floor of what passed as a tiny living space. Kneeling, Felix picked up one of the documents strewn about and scanned the words. “This says there were five notebooks catalogued during initial investigation of the space. Does that match with what you found?”

Sylvain nodded. “Yes. Five notebooks, one sketch pad, a pile of receipts from various places he’d shopped, and some maps of the area he’d either brought or printed out.” He reached into a box and brought out a stack of wrinkled papers. “Look at these maps and tell me what you think.”

Felix took the papers and thumbed through them, his forehead wrinkling. “What are these places he’s circled?”

“That’s what I wanted to know,” Sylvain replied, looking over Felix’s shoulder. “They’re labeled with little numbers as you can see, and there’s a key on the last page.”

Flipping to the last page, Felix found a small list written in a tidy, square handwriting. Each number corresponded with a different… “Cat breeds?” He asked, reading and rereading the list. “Riegan tabby, Edmundion, Galatea brown...these are cat breeds.”

“Really?” Sylvain pulled the paper from Felix’s hands. “I couldn’t tell; I’m more of a dog person. He must have had a reason to make something like this. Is there a large stray population in Garreg Mach?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Felix said, thinking back on various trips across the town. The few cats he’d seen outdoors had looked sleek and well-fed, likely from stealing fish from local fishermen’s baskets. “He’s written a time beside one of them.” He pointed at one of the circles, beside which a small clock was drawn, the minute hand at twelve and the hour hand pointing at five.

Sylvain squinted at the doodle. “Five o’clock...AM or PM?” 

“How should I know?” Felix growled, not relishing the obvious next step. “We should stake out the circled area at both times and see if he was pointing us toward anything meaningful. Take a picture of it with your phone.”

Groaning, Sylvain pulled out his cell phone and snapped a shot. “Five AM? My beauty sleep…”

“If you wanted beauty sleep you shouldn’t have joined law enforcement.” Felix picked a stack of receipts out of the box and sorted through them. “Most of these are for food, but there’s one here from a theatre for two movie tickets.”

“Two?”

Felix took a picture of the receipt. “Two tickets to the same movie. Who was he close enough with to see movies?” It was a rhetorical question, but Sylvain shrugged anyway. After a moment, Felix pulled out another receipt. “Garreg Mach Jewelers. This says he spent one hundred and twenty-two G on a necklace. Check the inventory for any necklaces found.” He flipped back to older receipts. “Some of these show two meals on one tab. Maybe the picture we have is old, but Ubert didn’t look large enough to be eating two meals.”

Sylvain made a noise in this throat. “He has a girlfriend.”

“He has  _ someone _ ,” Felix agreed. “A girlfriend. A boyfriend. A string of lovers. We need to--ah.” He pulled out a receipt and showed it to Sylvain. It was from a local movie rental place and showed the rental of two DVDs-- _ The Duchess Bride _ and  _ The Smallest Mermaid _ . Both men turned their heads to the television, and then to the old DVD player sitting on a shelf beneath it. Felix drew in a breath, looking around at the flat as if for the first time. “Someone else was here.”

————————————

An ornate clock on a nearby wall struck three o’clock, and a gold-filigree bird popped out of a tiny door below the clock face to squawk thrice at the room. “I didn’t know cuckoo clocks were still a thing,” Sylvain said, watching the little bird retreat back into its hiding place. “This whole place looks like my grandmother’s sitting room.” He sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose. “Smells like it, too, except with less gin.”

A group of older ladies playing cards at a nearby table turned to frown at Sylvain, and he winked roguishly back. Felix rolled his eyes. “Stop attracting attention.”

“Us existing here is attracting attention,” Sylvain replied, jerking his head towards the rest of the room. “I thought we were meeting a man in his late twenties. What are we doing in an old hen house like this?”

“This is where he wanted to meet.” Felix looked around, realizing his partner was right. They were the only men in the vintage tea room, and quite possibly the only people under fifty years old. This, combined with what he’d been told during the Merrow interviews made him most curious as to what sort of character they were about to meet. 

Sylvain examined the napkins, which were embroidered with fleur-de-lis. “Maybe this place is a front for a human trafficking circle. Or maybe all these ladies are retired assassins.” The older women were looking at him again, but this time with interest instead of irritation. He smiled easily, and they tittered amongst themselves. “Definitely assassins,” he whispered across the table to Felix.

Felix checked his watch again, but looked up when the bell above the entrance door rang and a man stepped into the shop. He was tall and so thin he might be described as gaunt, but he carried himself the way one might expect the prince of a small country to--with shoulders back and spine straight. A chorus of voices rose when he entered, and some of the shop’s patrons waved. “Lorenz! Come join us for a game of canasta!” One woman called.

Another woman stood, nearly tripping over her purse in her excitement. “No, no, come join  _ us _ ! Ange brought madeleines!”

“They taste like her cat made them,” another woman said, her silver hair piled atop her head and secured with a jeweled pin. “If you come over here I’ll get a pot of rose tea and a plate of those little biscuits with the jam you like!”

“Ladies, ladies, please,” Lorenz replied, holding up his hands. “Sadly I am here for business today, not pleasure.” The women grumbled, a few throwing glances at Felix and Sylvain. “Let me finish my meeting and then perhaps I will have time for a game or two.”

He wound his way around the tables, stopping in front of the one at which the officers were sitting. “You must be Mr. Lorenz Gloucester,” Sylvain said, standing and extending his hand. 

“That I am,” Lorenz replied, taking Sylvain’s hand delicately. “I daresay it was an...unexpected honor to be called for an interview by the Provincial Police. Where shall I sit?”

“Anywhere is fine,” Felix said, indicating the two empty chairs at the table. 

After a moment of consideration, Lorenz seated himself in the chair closest to the detective, then folded his hands and looked from one of the officers’ faces to the other. “Which one of you did I have the pleasure of speaking to on the phone?”

Sylvain raised his hand. “Right here.”

Lorenz looked him over, a wrinkle appearing in his forehead. “You sounded different on the phone, I must admit. I expected someone older.” He shrugged, lifting a hand and signaling for the wait staff. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“We need to ask you a few questions about an alleged incident that occurred at the end of April of this year,” Felix said. “Are you familiar with the local cafe The Merrow?”

Lorenz nodded. “I am.”

“Do you recall an incident where you were interacting with one of the female staff members and were told to stop by this man?” Felix held his hand out to his partner, but Sylvain was still trying to work out if Lorenz’s age comment was a compliment or an insult. Mentally growling, Felix took the file from Sylvain’s lap and pulled out the photo of Ashe, holding it up so Lorenz could see it. 

Lorenz stared at the photo, and Felix could see the wheels turning in his head, though his face was impassive. After a long silence, Lorenz met Felix’s eyes again, his face lighting up in a recognition that was just a little too forced to be natural. “Ah, yes, I do seem to recall something similar occurring.” 

“Could you tell us, in your words, what happened?” Felix laid the photo of Ashe down on the table in a place where it was still visible. 

“It was a regrettable misunderstanding,” Lorenz began, but he was cut off when a waitress appeared at the table. “Could we have a pot of earl grey? With cream, if you would. Thank you.”

The waitress looked at Felix, who shook his head, but Sylvain stopped her before she walked away. “You have beignets, right? We’ll take three. No, wait, four.” The waitress noted his order and he beamed as she returned to the kitchen.

Felix looked at his partner with a scathing expression that asked if he was here in Garreg Mach for an investigation or a culinary tour, but Lorenz spoke again, drawing their attention. “Like I was saying, it was a misunderstanding through and through. If I recall correctly, the cafe was soon to be closing for the day and the staff was watching the clock, so I struck up a conversation with one of the waitresses. My mother has been putting pressure on me for the past year to find a suitable partner and marry, so when I see a lady fair of face I like to find out more about them. This fellow,” he indicated Ashe’s photo, “didn’t seem to think my intentions were pure. I assured him that they indeed were, and that was that.”

“Can you give us more details?” 

“Details?” Lorenz tilted his head, bemused. “It was a very simple exchange.”

The waitress returned, setting a tea tray down in the middle of the table and distributing tea cups. Sylvain reached to pour himself some tea, but Lorenz stopped him, holding out an arm. “Marie,” he said, addressing the waitress in a disapproving tone. “This is an old set and the paint is worn. Hardly appropriate for guests.” 

Felix looked down at the cup in front of him. It was painted with blue roses and seemed unblemished to him, but the waitress quickly cleared the set, stammering apologies. “My apologies, Mr. Gloucester. I’ll bring you a new set straight away and-and I’ll refresh the kettle so it stays hot.”

Lorenz sighed as she hurried away. “I’ve spoken to management once about their worn tea sets, but it seems I need to broach the subject again,” he explained. Barely a minute later the waitress was back with cups painted with dahlias and, after inspecting it, Lorenz nodded. “Acceptable. Oh, and the beignets are out as well. Put it all on my tab, Marie.”

“We’ll cover the food,” Felix said, sitting forward. “We are the ones who asked to meet you.”

“That won’t do,” Lorenz replied with a frown. “I’m happy to pay. On my tab, Marie. Anything to stimulate the local economy.”

Felix didn’t reply, but didn’t take a beignet when the plate was offered to him. Instead, he watched Lorenz eat his with a knife and fork, his long fingers primly staying out of the powdered sugar. “Back to April,” he prompted, pushing his cup and saucer aside and moving Ashe’s photo into better view. 

Lorenz patted his mouth with a napkin. “Yes. April. You wanted details. I’m afraid I have few to give. The lady in question was cleaning tables, I believe, and I happened to be sitting nearby. I approached her and asked her a few questions--”

“What sort of questions?” Felix interrupted. 

Lorenz looked down his nose at him, silently chastising his rudeness. “The sort of questions one might ask a potential marriage partner. Her surname, for instance; who her parents are and what they do for a living. Her education level. If she had any history of infertility. If her ambitions in life extended beyond bussing tables.”

Sylvain grimaced. “You ask all women these questions?”

“Only ones I find interesting.”

“And then what happened?”

“This fellow,” Lorenz indicated the photo again, “left his table and interrupted us. He implied that the lady wasn’t interested in speaking with me and said I was making a ‘nuisance’ of myself.” 

Lorenz and Felix stared at each other, the former wanting the vocalization of some sort of sympathy, and the latter refusing. Sylvain broke the silence, one cheek full of beignet. “Then what?”

Mildly outraged that no one was remarking on how disgraceful Ashe’s assertions had been, Lorenz sniffed. “The lady did not defend me, no doubt astonished into silence by this man’s crude behavior, and so I politely excused myself from the shop. I expect any partner of mine to have a little more backbone than to allow someone to malign a gentleman right in front of their eyes.” He took a drink of his tea. “It’s just as well. I researched her surname later and found nothing of value, so she would have been a poor candidate anyway.”

Felix opened the file, flipping through the pages in search of The Merrow’s staff roster. “Who was the woman in this story?” He found the page and pulled it out, clicking a pen open with his other hand. “Her name,” he said impatiently when Lorenz didn’t answer. 

“Macneary,” Lorenz said. “I’m not sure if it’s spelled ‘m-c-n’ or ‘m-a-c-n’, though I researched both of them and found nothing.”

Sylvain leaned towards Felix, looking down the roster. There were no names even close to that on the page, and the officers exchanged a glance. “What was her first name?”

Lorenz shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you; the rude fellow interrupted me before I could find out.”

“The staff wears nametags; do you remember if she wore one?”

“I don’t recall.”

“What did she look like?” Felix asked, readying his pen. They had only interviewed half of The Merrow’s staff, but he had an excellent memory for faces. 

Cup in hand, Lorenz closed his eyes in thought. “She was lovely. Between five to five and a half feet tall. Medium-brown skin. Long orchid-colored hair tied up in a braid. Hips the right width for childbearing. I would estimate...a B cup.” 

Sylvain twitched, his face wrinkling in disgust before he could stop it. Pausing writing, Felix glanced at his partner, his own disgust showing only in his eyes. Undisturbed, Lorenz snapped his fingers, opening his eyes. “Yes, I remember now. She had a tattoo under one of her eyes. Usually tattoos entirely disqualify someone from my consideration, but her tattoo seemed to have some significance.”

“I see,” Felix said, laying his pen down. “A few last questions before we go: how did Ashe Ubert’s interruption in your conversation with this woman make you feel?”

A crease of surprise appeared above Lorenz’s eyebrows. “How did it make me feel? Well...the way any man who was unfairly slandered in front of others--a lady no less--might feel. Disappointed. Shamed. A little angry, I will admit.”

“Angry enough to hurt him?” Sylvain asked, leaning forward. 

Lorenz blinked, taken aback. “Of course not. In case you haven’t yet surmised, I strive to embody the ideals of gentlemenhood and chivalry. To hurt another person would betray those ideals.”

“Anger is a funny thing,” Sylvain said, shrugging. “It can persuade even gentlemen into making mistakes. It can blind you, too. One minute you’re just chatting, and the next you’ve got a gun in your hand.” 

“I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but I have never and would never hurt another person. Ask Mr. Ubert yourself.” Lorenz’s voice was sharp now, sharper than the short knives in the officers’ belts.

“We would, but the thing is…” Felix twined his fingers together, bringing his hands to rest on the table and making deep eye contact with Lorenz. “Ashe Ubert is missing and has been for weeks. “

For the first time, Lorenz’s composure cracked, his lips parting in shock. “Missing? I knew he left town, but…”

Sylvain’s eyes glinted in the light from the miniature chandelier above the table. “Why would you know that? Were you keeping tabs on him?”

Lorenz had no answer. He stared at Felix for a minute before breaking eye contact and pushing his cup forward on the table. When he spoke, his words were broken with an involuntary hard swallow. “I feel--I feel I may need a lawyer for any further questions.”

“Then get one.” Felix sat back, picking up Ashe’s photo and placing it in the file, then closing the file with a snap. “We may have more questions in the future. For now you’re free to go. Keep this information to yourself.”

When Lorenz stood, his legs were unsteady, and his princely posture had wilted somewhat. Without another word, he turned and left the shop, ignoring the disappointed cries from the card-playing ladies. Felix and Sylvain looked at each other, a pregnant silence heavy between them. “Get the car,” Felix instructed. “I’m going to pay up front. I’d rather not owe him anything.”

————————————

“Okay, so tell me why that guy can estimate women’s bra cup sizes,” Sylvain burst out once they were both back in the car. 

“Because he’s a creep,” Felix responded, searching the rearview and side mirrors for any sign that Lorenz was still hanging about. “You’re bad, but you’re nowhere near his level.”

Sylvain shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “Oh no. No.” He turned to look at his partner, who had satisfied himself that Lorenz had left. “Don’t put me in the same category as him; that’s just insulting. I like women’s shapes as much as the next guy, but I have never assessed them for ‘childbearing’ potential.”

Felix shifted the car into reverse and began pulling out of the parking lot. “Other than that, what did you think?”

“You mean is he suspicious? Hell yeah, he’s suspicious. Is he why Ubert disappeared? I don’t know.” Sylvain leaned on the car door. “On a scale of one to ten with ten being the most likely, I’d put him killing Ubert outright at a four and Ubert being locked in a creepy dungeon beneath his house at a seven.”

Felix said nothing, and the two weighed their own thoughts in silence as they drove. When his ruminations tired him, Sylvain looked out the window and watched the little town whisk past. Garreg Mach was charming. The buildings were worn, but freshly painted in bright colors, and every so often the ocean would be visible through gaps in the shops and offices. People in all stages of life walked the sidewalks, some hurrying as if late to a meeting, some laughing with friends, and some just enjoying the balmy summer sun. This was how it should be; people able to live the sort of life they choose. That was why Sylvain joined the police force--to help make sure people could live happily. 

Maybe medical professionals felt this way too. After all, they joined the medical field to help keep people healthy, right? But to be a medical professional means you spend most of your time among the sick and dying. In that same way, being a police officer meant Sylvain spent most of his time facing the ugliness of what humans can do to each other, all while reaching for some amorphous utopia where all were safe and no one hurt. 

Insanity. He was insane to think he could find or make such a place. Even so, he had to try. Finding Ashe Ubert would be a good step in that direction. He turned his gaze towards Felix, watching the way his hand gripped the steering wheel.  _ Why did Felix become a detective? _ He wondered. He’d been Felix’s partner for years, but the stoic detective wasn’t much for introspective conversation.

“So. What’s next?” Sylvain asked.

Felix blinked like he’d been pulled out of deep contemplation, and took a moment to reorient his thoughts. “The weak link at The Merrow--she’s the next step. We need to get closer to her. If we can do that, I think she’ll give up information without even realizing it.”

“Annette Dominic, no ‘k’ at the end,” Sylvain said, smiling at the memory. “I’m on it.”

“No, you’re not,” Felix disagreed. “Like hell I’m letting you lead a mission like that. Next thing I know you’ll have her convinced she’s in love, then you’ll do your usual routine of dazzle-and-dash.” Sylvain started to interrupt, but he spoke louder over his words. “No, I’ll take the lead on this one.”

Sylvain barked out a laugh. “You’re going to--you? You’ve got all the softness of a box of discount staples. How exactly do you intend to cajole information out of anyone? You don’t even know how to be friends with  _ me _ , let alone a woman.”

“I’ve watched you play the fool for years. How hard can it be?”

“How hard can it…” Sylvain closed his eyes, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head. “Actually, I want to see this. I think this is a great idea.”

“I don’t care what you think; this is what’s going to happen. You focus on looking into Lorenz Gloucester’s background and finding the other guy The Merrow staff mentioned--von Aegir.”

Sylvain nodded, hiding a smirk beneath his palm. “Great. Let me know when she realizes you have no soul and I’ll try to salvage the mess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! If there are Americans out there, I hope this helps with the current stress even if only for a moment.   
> Odds on Ashe being in Lorenz's basement? Anyone?   
> Like any good mystery, this story is building a bit slowly, but it will pay off. I'm hoping for biweekly updates if possible, though this week has absolutely destroyed my productivity so we will see. 
> 
> Also I feel like Felix necessarily HAS to be a little OOC in a modern story because he's a little flat in the game (except for his supports with Annette and maybe Bernie. He can't rail about swords and murder and war here so he has to have a little deeper character.
> 
> LunaClefairy: The AnniexFelix is on the way! :)
> 
> machiroads: I'm so glad to see you back! Thanks for hanging in there with me and YES THE WEAK LINK IS ALWAYS FELIX


	4. The Loose Thread

CHAPTER FOUR: The Loose Thread

Felix paused outside the door to The Merrow, taking a moment to uncharacteristically straighten his collar. Friends. He had to make friends with Dominic--no, Annette. Friends called each other by their first names. 

Didn’t they?

He needed a cigarette to deal with this.

Oh, come on. This wasn’t hard. He’d watched Sylvain charm and allure so many people--if Sylvain could do it, so could he. Sylvain had nothing he didn’t have, save good looks and a distinct lack of shame. Theoretically, neither of those should be the deciding factor in a friendship. 

After a deep breath, he opened the door, batting at the dangling fish nets as he entered. A chorus of cheerful voices called the usual  _ welcome! _ , though they sobered when they recognized who he was. “Manuela!” Dorothea called into the back. “One of the police officers is back!”

The shop was full today, which made sense as it was a Saturday. Most of the faces Felix remembered from the interviews were either behind the counter or coming in and out of the kitchen, and a few new faces were present as well. One of the new faces was behind the cash register. As Felix approached, he realized she was the girl with the braid he’d spoken to on his first visit to the cafe--the one who told him that mermaids were Garreg Mach’s ‘thing’. She recognized him too, for her eyes narrowed as he neared. “Do you want to order something, or are you just here to talk to Manuela,” she asked, face stony. 

“Just Manuela,” Felix replied.

The girl’s green eyes were suspicious, but not completely cold. “Then stand over there, please, so other customers can place their orders.” 

Felix stepped to the side, feeling off-kilter without Sylvain at his side. Sylvain was good at smoothing these sorts of interactions into something that felt almost natural. After a couple of minutes, Manuela came out from the back room and waved at him. “Detective Fraldarius, was it?” She asked, smiling at him. “Here today without your other half?”

Sylvain would have something clever to say here. Felix did not. “Yes,” he finally said. “I understand your full staff is here today. I was hoping to talk to the ones we weren’t able to talk to the other day.” 

Manuela sighed. “All business, aren’t you? Well, I’m alright with it, but only if you keep them brief. It’s our busiest day of the week and I need all my little sailors on deck.” 

“I’ll keep them as brief as I can.”

“Oh, and...you may have a little trouble with one of them.” Manuela lowered her voice. “Bernadetta is a sweet girl, but she has anxiety and...well, she may not be as cooperative as the others.”

Felix frowned. “When you say trouble...is she violent?”

“No, no,” Manuela laughed, touching a hand lightly to Felix’s shoulder. “Not that sort of trouble. Truth be told, when she heard you were here, she locked herself in the ladies’ room. When she gets like that...there’s little that can be done. I can fuss at her until my voice is hoarse, but it won’t change a thing.”

“I see.” Felix noted the name on a pad of paper. “We’ll save her for last, then.”

“Actually, I’d rather you try to talk to her first so she’ll come out and tend the garnishes. If you don’t, I have no doubt she’ll stay in the restroom until you leave.”

Wanting to argue but finding no cause to, Felix reluctantly agreed. “Can you keep everyone out of the women’s bathroom for a few minutes?”

Manuela winked at him, slow and fluttering. “Leave it to me.”

————————————

After a deep sigh and an eye roll, Felix knocked on the door to the women’s restroom. “Bernadetta Varley? Are you in there?” A terrified squeak was his only reply, so he knocked again. “This is Detective Fraldarius with the Faerghus Provincial Police. I’m not going to hurt you, so could you please come out so I can ask you a few questions?”

Nothing. 

“Miss Varley, I’m not here to hurt you. I only want to ask you some simple questions. Please come out.” 

Nothing.

Irritated, Felix knocked a third time. “Miss Varley, if you don’t come out, I’m going to be forced to enter the restroom. I’d rather not do that. “

“No!” A thin, reedy voice shrilled. “No, no, don’t come in! Why would you ask Bernie questions? Bernie doesn’t know anything!”

“Anything about what?”

“A-about anything!”

So this was the ‘trouble’ the manager had been talking about. Not for the last time, Felix wished he’d brought Sylvain. Sympathy wasn’t a trait Felix actively cultivated, and someone must have ripped out the part of his police manual that discussed how to coax anxious waitresses out of bathrooms. Looking back, he found a few of The Merrow’s staff members watching him, which made him more eager to be done with this. “Listen. Neither of us want a scene. If you come out and answer one question, I’ll leave you be.”

He could hear her breathing hard behind the bathroom door, and she whined in the back of her throat before answering. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“It has to be a real promise. Like a pinky promise. B-but I don’t want to touch you! Oh goddess, why did I say that? Stupid Bernie! No touching!”

A scene where he kicked open the door and possibly set the restaurant on fire flashed through Felix’s mind, but he breathed it away. “I promise on my word as a police officer and as a man.”

After another moment of silence, the bathroom door opened slowly and a small woman with short purple hair peered out through the crack. Her hair was disheveled, like she’d been pulling at it, and her eyes were wide with fear. For an instant, Felix thought she might be the woman Lorenz had described in his story, but this Bernadetta was pale to the point of translucence and childlike in figure, and the only thing under her eyes were dark circles like bruises.

She scowled at him and he remembered what he was doing. He had promised only one question, so he needed to make it as comprehensive as possible. “You have to make your answer long enough to satisfy me,” he told her. “A one word answer won’t count.”

Her scowl deepened into a furious pout, but she nodded. He reached for his notepad, but dropped his hands when she flinched. No notepad, then; chances were low she’d give him anything worth writing down anyway. “Do you know anything about the disappearance of Ashe Ubert, one of your customers here?”

She blinked, big grey eyes flickering between his face and the group of her coworkers behind him. Her hands tightened on the door and she shook her head. “No, I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t talk to him much because I-I don’t like people, but I heard he’s a nice guy and...um…!” Her eyes closed tightly, like she was in pain. “I-I hope you find him! There!”

Felix watched her tremble, feeling both annoyed and oddly guilty. “Did--”

“No!” She screeched, eyes flying open to glare at him. “You said one question!”

Nodding, Felix stepped back from the door. “You’re right. I appreciate your cooperation and...you’re free to go.”

She hesitated as if unsure if he truly meant what he said, then the door snapped closed and Felix heard her breath a sigh of relief. A set of footsteps approached him from behind, and the girl Annette had called Mercy nudged him aside, putting a hand to the bathroom door. “You did a good job, Bernie! Now how about that cake I promised?”

“Cake?” Bernadetta’s voice immediately calmed, even sounding hopeful through the door. “...what flavor?”

“Peach current. And there’s whipped cream!”

“...alright. T-tell Manuela I’ll be in the kitchen in a few minutes.” 

Mercedes turned around and smiled at the officer. “She’s a smart girl; you just have to know how to motivate her properly.”

“Do you have time for a short interview?” Felix asked, though he already felt drained as if Bernadetta’s anxiety had sapped his strength instead of her own. 

“No, I have to go warm up Bernie’s cake, but I can come get you when I’m finished.” Her smile left no room for argument.

Felix nodded. There were others to talk to. 

“How about me?” An unfamiliar voice offered. Felix turned to see who had spoken; it was a tall young man leaning against the wall with a friendly smirk. “I’ve got a few minutes.” 

————————————

“Claude von Riegan,” the man said, leaning back in his chair, entirely at ease. His bright green eyes were merry, but their uncanny sharpness reminded Felix of Lysithea von Cordelia from the previous round of interviews. 

“What’s your job here?”

“Jack of all trades. Toilet unclogger. Blender fixer. Bubble waffle sampler. Hilda motivator. Professional creep scarer-awayer.” Claude shrugged. “I was technically hired as a handyman, but you name it and I’ve probably done it.”

“You scare away a lot of creeps?”

“Nah, not that many. Sometimes if one of the girls gets a bad feeling about a customer they’ll have me stay with them while they lock up.”

“Is it strange being the only man working with a staff of all women?”

Claude shook his head, laughing a little. “Not at all. Men and women...we’re all just people. The ones who see women as a different breed are the ones who have a hard time understanding them.”

Felix shifted in his seat. This man was as calm as if he were on his own sofa watching television, but in Felix’s experience, the calmest interviewees were the ones who were practiced liars. “Did you know Ashe Ubert well?”

“I more knew  _ of  _ him than  _ knew _ him,” Claude explained. “I’m not usually asked to work with customers, so most of what I knew about him came from what my coworkers said. He seemed like a really decent guy from what I heard, so it’s a shame he’s missing.”

“Did you ever overhear anything suspicious about him?”

“Yeah, I heard a lot of dangerous plots from the girls.” Claude grinned when Felix’s attention sharpened. “Plots to get him on the beach so they could see him in a swimsuit. No murder plots, though, sorry.”

Felix clenched his jaw. “You have a lot of guts to be so glib with a detective in an active investigation.”

Halfway truly remorseful and halfway even more amused, Claude put his hands together in apology. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You’re just so serious; I couldn’t help it. You’re like a cop on TV, you know? I kind of expected you to pull out a flashlight and shine it in my face and grill me about the speeding ticket I got when I was sixteen. I’ll be serious from now on, I promise.”

The twinkle in Claude’s eyes did not support his promise, but Felix pushed on. “How about Lorenz Gloucester? Do you know anything about him?”

“Ah, right. Lorenz. He’s definitely a problem. He and Ferdinand are probably why I was hired in the first place.”

“Go on.”

“He’s one of those guys I was talking about earlier--the ones that see women as aliens or some different species. He comes in and tries to hit on the girls--usually Dorothea and Ingrid--even when they’ve made it clear they’re not interested. Since they hired me, they just give me a call when he shows up and I get him to leave.”

“How do you do that?”

Claude winked at Felix. “Easy. I hit on  _ him _ even more aggressively than he hits on them. Works every time.”

Felix thought of Lorenz and nearly smiled at the thought. “Do you think Gloucester has the capacity to hurt someone?”

“That’s...a good question.” Claude sat forward, a strange expression crossing his face. “Truthfully, I don’t know. He’s a strange guy. But you’d think that if he was going to snap on anyone, he’d snap on me.”

“Have you ever worried that he might?”

“No way. I can hold my own in a fight.” Claude’s smirk was back. 

Had he been in many fights to know this? “One last question.” Felix also sat forward, lowering his voice. “Has anything at The Merrow ever felt...off to you?”

A long, heavy silence followed the question, and Claude seemed to be evaluating Felix harder than ever. “No,” he said finally, leaning back again and throwing his arms behind his head. 

Pushing into that hesitation, Felix lowered his voice even further. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah.” Claude met his eyes, though his smile was made of wood. “This place? Just a regular cafe.”

————————————

Felix stared into his tea, deep in thought. He’d been close to something, he felt it; something Claude was saying with his eyes, though his mouth spoke reassurances. After the interview, Claude had wished him luck with the investigation, then returned to work. Now he was comfortably occupied with teasing Hilda at the smoothie station, as unrattled as ever.

He’d looked for Mercedes, but Lysithea apologized on her behalf, saying she’d been asked to tend the beach bar while Manuela spoke with a business associate on the phone. Ingrid was available, but Felix decided to have Sylvain finish them another day. The two he’d already done had exhausted his pool of patience. Now he was simply waiting...and thinking.

“You called for me?” 

Felix looked up to see Annette Dominic-without-a-k-at-the-end standing beside his booth, a serving tray clutched like a shield in her arms and an apprehensive look on her face. “Yes. Sit down.” A beat. “Please.”

Annette’s apprehension deepened, but she slid into the seat across from him, still holding the tray to her chest. “Did you...need something?”

Friends. Friends. Friendly. 

“Yes, actually.” Felix cleared his throat, wishing he’d practiced his lie more. He disliked lying, even in the service of the greater good. “Believe it or not, I’m a writer, too. It’s why I took Ashe Ubert’s case--I felt a connection. I’ve been...writing articles for a travel website for a couple of years now, and I’d like to write one on Garreg Mach.”

“Oh,” Annette said, her grip on the tray loosening a bit. 

“Thing is...I need a local to be my guide around town and show me the scene tourists don’t usually experience. I wanted to ask you to be my guide. We’ll keep my police work separate, of course.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, placing it on the table. “You can take me around at your pace. I’ll pay you well.”

Annette’s eyes hesitated on his worn leather wallet before drifting up to meet his expectant gaze. Her shoulders relaxed, and she let the tray lean forward into her lap. “Wow. Gotta say, you surprised me.” Now that the fear had leached from her face, her eyebrows were quirked in curiosity. “It’s not a bad offer, and I love Garreg Mach, but...why me? Wouldn’t you rather have someone who was born here be your guide?”

“You live here, don’t you?”

“I do, but I’ve only ever worked here during the summer. Out of season I live near Fhirdiad.”

She was a summer hire. That was news to him. He’d assumed they were all locals, though such an assumption was foolish in a tourist town. “I’m mostly interested in the summer scene, anyway, so it’s not a problem,” he said quickly, lest she refer him to someone else. “What do you say?”

“Um…” She hesitated, looking down at his wallet again. “I’m not  _ against _ the idea. Can I have a couple of days to think it over? I’ll have an answer to you by Monday!”

He nodded. “Sure.” He had hoped she’d say yes outright, but a ‘maybe’ was better than a ‘no’. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t interfere with your job here, of course.” 

“Right. Manuela would drown me if I skipped work for another job,” Annette laughed. “Kidding!” She corrected herself with a jolt. “I’m only kidding! Manuela would never do something like that!” She bit her lip, as if punishing herself.

The worry on her face made the corners of Felix’s mouth twitch up, but he was able to pull his face into submission before she noticed.  _ This woman is ridiculous _ , he thought, mentally cursing himself for his involuntary response.  _ Like an anxious child.  _ It would be easy to get information out of her. “This is the booth in which Ubert sat, isn’t it?” He asked casually as if Lysithea hadn’t already confirmed it.

Annette pulled herself out of her thoughts to ogle him. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

“I told you; I’m a writer. This booth is perfect for writing.”

A softness passed over Annette’s features, and she chuckled. “Sorry it’s just...Ashe said the same thing.”

“He had good instincts,” Felix said, looking away. “I thought maybe he would have carved his initials in the wood of the table or something, but I didn’t find anything of the sort.”

“I don’t think he’d do something like that,” Annette replied. “He has some funny quirks, but he’s too respectful to deface property--especially ours. He saw Ingrid tell off plenty of customers for leaving their trash on the tables or making a mess, so I’m sure he’d want to avoid that possibly happening to him.”

“What kind of quirks did he have?” Felix tried to sound light and conversational as if he weren’t fishing for information.

Annette thought, putting her fist to her chin. “One time I saw him pull a pencil out from under the booth cushion. I asked him about it and he said he’s always hidden things under cushions, even when he was a little boy. After he stopped coming to the cafe, we had to clean out all the story notes he left under the cushion you’re sitting on. And, um, he carried a talisman around to ward off ghosts, ‘cuz he said he saw a ghost once.” Her lips tightened. “I almost asked him to make me one. I hate ghosts and I  _ hate _ ghost stories.”

“Ghost stories are for children,” Felix said derisively. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“How would you know?” Annette frowned at him.

“If anyone would be plagued by ghosts, it would be me. I’ve seen and dealt with enough corpses to fill all your nightmares.”

The thought seemed to drain blood from Annette’s face. “Don’t you think that some people are more sensitive to things like ghosts than others, though? Maybe you don’t see them because you can’t.”

Felix snorted. “With our scientific advancements, there’s no excuse for believing in fairy tales and cryptids. If ghosts or pixies or mermaids or abominable snowmen were real, we would have found them by now.”

“Maybe...they just don’t want to be found. After all, humans tend to trap and kill anything they don’t understand.” Annette hugged herself. “There’s a lot of mysteries we don’t have answers to--like if aliens exist, or what happens after you die. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I’d rather not take the chance. No way, no how!”

_ Ridiculous _ , Felix thought again, watching her shiver. “Be scared if you like,” he said, crossing his arms. “I take it you won’t be taking me on any ghost tours as my guide.”

“Absolutely not!” Annette stood, shaking her head, then caught herself. “If...if I take the job, that is. I’ve got to get back to work now, though. I’ll let you know my decision the next time I see you.”

She left, and Felix pocketed his wallet again after throwing some bills down on the table for the tea. Something Annette had said had sparked a question in his mind, and it was his job to answer questions.

————————————

Captain Edelgard and Lieutenant von Vestra were outside Ubert’s apartment on a conference call when he pulled up, and they eyed him curiously as he climbed the stairs. “I left something in the apartment,” he explained over the breezeway lattice. “I’ll only be a moment.” 

Lieutenant von Vestra looked meaningfully at Captain Edelgard, and she opened her mouth, but a voice Felix immediately recognized as Captain Blaiddyd’s sounded from the speakerphone in her hand, interrupting her. “Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes, apologies,” Captain Edelgard said quickly. “As I was saying, I don’t believe I need to repeat myself for a third time. You know as well as I what’s at stake here.”

Blaiddyd’s voice responded curtly yet politely, but Felix had already slipped away into the apartment. He peeked into each room, finding them empty.  _ Good _ , he thought, still not sure why he’d lied to Captain Edelgard earlier. For someone who abhorred liars, he’d told an uncomfortable number of untruths today. If he found something, he’d let her know, he told himself. No need to salt a pot that wasn’t even boiling.

Once he was satisfied he was alone, he started work on the living room, pulling the cushions up on the couch and loveseat one by one. Aside from a half-eaten bag of peanut M&Ms stashed under one of the loveseat cushions, they were empty. Undaunted, he checked the kitchen, but all the seats were wooden and had no cushions. 

He pulled the mattress in the bedroom up, running a hand under it and bending down to peek beneath the springs. Nothing. 

Last was the plushy amaranth-colored chair. He lifted the cushion and felt his heart stutter when it revealed a simple leather-bound notebook.  _ A sixth notebook _ , he thought, staring at it like he’d found Ubert himself curled beneath that cushion. After a moment, he dropped the cushion and fished in his pockets, pulling out a pair of latex gloves. He donned them, then lifted the cushion again and grabbed the notebook, weighing it in his hand before opening it and quickly flipping through the pages. There was a note stuck in the pages, as well as a dried flower and a few other odds and ends that begged for closer examination. 

In the kitchen there was a box with plastic bags in which all evidence was to be placed and catalogued. Felix slid the notebook into a large bag and pulled off his gloves, preparing to leave the apartment and alert Captain Edelgard, but his feet stopped before he reached the front door. 

Something nudged him from deep within and he stared at the doorknob, bag in hand. He’d told Captain Edelgard--assured her--that he and the Province intended to work cooperatively, that he would turn over all evidence and keep no secrets...yet his intuition stopped him, refusing to let him take another step. The notebook grew heavier and heavier, and he felt that if he dropped it, it would crash to the wooden floor with a boom that would shake all of Garreg Mach. 

Almost against his will, his hand slowly tucked the bag into his pocket, smoothing the fabric to where it was only noticeable if closely scrutinized. He would examine it first, then he would, without a doubt, turn it over to the GMPD. After all, if they took it from him now to investigate, he likely wouldn’t be able to lay hands on it again for days, if not weeks, while it was processed.

This only made sense. He was a detective, damn it, and he needed access to evidence in order to do his job. Captain Edelgard would understand...and it would be the smallest of untruths to add to his growing list if he told her he’d only just found the notebook tomorrow or the day after. Of course he would wear gloves when he handled it, so as not to spoil the evidence. 

Captain Edelgard was still arguing heartily with Captain Blaiddyd when he walked past them, and she barely acknowledged his passing with a jerk of her head, though Lieutenant von Vestra’s eyes followed him all the way to his car. The notebook burned a hole in Felix’s pocket and he relished the molten thrill pulsing through his veins. 

He’d found the loose thread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brad Pitt yells 'what's in the book? WHAT'S IN THE FCKIN BOOK????'  
> The thing about dopey people like me and Annette is you never expect us to lie and/or you expect us to be shite at it, so you never see it coming. That's our secret weapon.
> 
> machiroads: I gotta say a lot more people were offended by Lorenz's doughnut eating habits than I was prepared for
> 
> Ren_Maisley: holy shite I just gained like 200 IQ points
> 
> Guest: Yay thank you!!! I'm so happy you found me! Can't wait to share more with you!
> 
> LunaClefairy: Strictly business. Also heh heh you're a natural detective...
> 
> Saus: Aw man, you're making me blush! Thanks for your kind words and thank you for reading! I hope you continue to enjoy!
> 
> Enilda: You're so right...like the AM and PM system is so bad...send us help...! AND DON'T GO UNRAVELING MY MYSTERIES YET??? Fufufu~


	5. The Agreement

CHAPTER FIVE: The Agreement

The steam gently wafting from the coffee in the center console of the car barely registered in the dim glow of the sun that was just beginning to rise. Sylvain blinked, blearily clearing his eyes, and looked over at his partner, who was tapping the bagged notebook from Ubert’s apartment on his knee and staring out the windshield. “See anything yet?” He asked, partially out of curiosity but mostly to wake himself up. 

Felix put a small pair of binoculars up to his eyes and peered through them, sweeping the town square over beside which they were parked. “Nothing but teenagers glued to their phones. What in Sothis’ name are they doing out here at five in the morning?”

Sylvain shrugged, picking up his coffee and taking a swig. “They should be in bed. I wish I was in bed.”

“Stop saying that,” Felix instructed irritably, handing him the binoculars. “Look and see if you see anything unusual.”

Sylvain took the binoculars and squinted through them. Felix was right; the square was empty, save for a group of three teenagers with their phones out, walking around and sweeping their phones as if looking for treasure. Every now and again one of them would exclaim, showing the screen to the others. “Are they playing some sort of game?”

Felix only grunted in response, and Sylvain lowered the binoculars, wishing the sun would rise faster so his partner could open that goddess-forsaken notebook and continue reading as much as he clearly wanted to. For a moment he considered pulling out his own phone and turning on the flashlight so Felix could see the writing, but swallowed the urge. Stakeouts only worked if the observers blended in like scenery. 

The two sat in silence for another half hour, passing the binoculars back and forth. Finally Sylvain showed Felix the time on his phone screen. “It’s six-thirty now and nothing happened. Can we go get breakfast?” When he got no response, he clicked his phone screen off and sighed. “Will you at least tell me what you found in that notebook? There should be enough light to read it now.”

Felix twitched, like he’d been waiting for this moment for hours. Trying hard not to seem too eager, he lazily reached into his pocket and pulled out two pairs of gloves, one of which he threw at Sylvain and one he put on himself. “I found this under the cushion of the chair in Ubert’s bedroom.”

“Under a cushion?”

“Dominic-without-a-k-at-the-end mentioned Ubert likes to hide things under cushions,” Felix explained, opening the notebook. “The GMPD did a good job, but clearly not a perfect one. I haven’t read through it in depth, but I found some interesting oddments stuck between the pages. There’s a dried sunflower, some more receipts, and this.”

A little irked that Felix’s efforts at befriending Annette hadn’t crashed and burned in a spectacularly amusing way, Sylvain leaned over the center console to watch his partner pluck something from between two pages. “What the...is that hair?”

Holding aloft a snipped lock of purple hair held together with a paperclip, Felix nodded. “Looks human, or at least too long and not the right color for any animal I’ve ever come across.” He handed the lock to Sylvain, who ran a finger through the little bundle. “Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to whose it is, but I have suspicions.”

“Could be from a family member,” Sylvain offered.

“Possibly. Ashe Ubert’s hair is silver, however, which is a recessive gene, and if you look at his pictures, it appears to be fine and straight in texture. This hair is thick, with some curl to it. Ubert may straighten his hair artificially, but no straightening iron was found in his apartment and, considering he left his comb behind when he left I doubt he would take an appliance like that with him wherever he is. He also doesn’t seem like the type to have his hair permanently relaxed, though I could be wrong. All of this taken into account, I wouldn’t expect someone with hair like this to be in his immediate family.”

Sylvain nodded, then snapped his fingers. “Ashe is adopted, though. It could be from his adopted family.”

A look of irritation mixed with superiority settled on Felix’s face, and his lip curled. “If you’d read the case files in their entirety like instructed, you’d know that there is a picture of Ubert’s adopted father as well as his adopted brother, as well as one of the blood sister who made the initial missing report. ”

_ Busted _ , Sylvain thought, mentally kicking himself. “R-right,” he replied. “I’ll, erm, have another go through the files tonight. How about his adopted mother? I know she’s deceased,” he added quickly, before he could be reprimanded again for his ignorance. “But he could have saved a lock of hair as a memory.”

“Again, unlikely. Mr. Lonato’s hair is white with age, but his son Christophe’s hair is also light in color. If Mrs. Lonato had this sort of hair, it would have more than likely shown in her son.”

“Someone important enough to Ashe to keep their hair...this could be our mystery lover!” Sylvain held the hair up again, squinting at it. “It seems to have come from a woman, judging by the length. A girlfriend?”

Felix nodded. “Not just any girlfriend, either. Someone we’ve already heard about.” When Sylvain only balked in confusion, Felix pointed to the hair. “What color would you call that?”

The sun was now almost fully up, so Sylvain had no trouble identifying its color. “Purple...with a tint of red.”

“Be more precise.” 

“I dunno. Wine? Plum?”

“Would you call it ‘orchid’?”

“Yeah, that’s--wait…” Sylvain nearly dropped the lock of hair as the pieces clicked into place in his mind. “Lorenz Gloucester! He said the woman Ashe saved from being harassed had orchid-colored hair!”

“His precise words were that she had ‘long, orchid-colored hair’ that she kept in a braid.”

Sylvain squinted at the hair lock again. “Back in college, some of the girls would braid their hair at night to make curls the next day. This woman’s hair may not be naturally curly--this lock could just look that way because it was in a braid prior to being cut.” The two looked at each other, barely daring to breathe lest they break the flow of revelation. After a moment, Sylvain tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. “But that would mean that our mystery lover…”

Felix picked up his sentence, finishing it for him. “Our mystery lover--seemingly the last person who saw Ubert alive--used to work at The Merrow.”

“Oh  _ shit _ ,” Sylvain said, handing the hair back to his partner. “This is big. But this woman wasn’t on the roster Ms. Casagranda gave us. You went to The Merrow on Saturday, when all the staff is supposed to be there. Did you see anyone matching her description?”

Shaking his head, Felix took the lock of hair and placed it back in the book pages. “No. We’ve personally interviewed everyone on the roster except Ingrid Galatea and Mercedes von Martritz, and both of them are blonde.” 

“Maybe she quit, or was fired,” Sylvain said, shrugging. “We have to find out. Maybe Ms. Casagranda has her address or phone number. If nothing else, they can at least tell us her name.”

“There’s more,” Felix said, flipping the pages in the notebook back until he reached a folded loose leaf of paper, which he liberated and held out to his partner. “Read this.”

Sylvain took the paper, unfolding it gently and reading aloud:

_ Ashe Ubert: _

_ Garbage is collected and taken away because it belongs with other garbage, not with valuables. Garbage is an eyesore. A nuisance. Disgusting. _

_ The same applies to trash humans like you: a thief who poisons whatever well you are thrown into.  _

_ I KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE. _

_ You have one week to leave Garreg Mach. If you ignore this warning, the consequences will be...painful. _

_ We are watching. _

“Well,” he said when he’d finished, his eyebrows raised nearly into his hairline. “That wasn’t very friendly, was it?”

“It wasn’t signed, but it does appear to be handwritten,” Felix said. “That gives us hope that we could possibly match it to writing samples of potential suspects.”

Sylvain flipped the paper over, looking for any stray marks or anything that could be used to identify the writer. The rest of the paper was blank, though there were smudges where it had rubbed against the lead of the pencil Ashe had used to write in his notebook. “‘A thief who poisons whatever well you are thrown into’...does Ubert have a criminal record? Also, are there any wells in Garreg Mach and have we checked the bottom of them? This was oddly specific.”

“Excellent questions. I need you to start finding the answers to those questions today while I go back to The Merrow and deal with that teleconference with Captains Edelgard and Blaiddyd.” Felix held his hand out, motioning for the note to be returned. “Also...if you happen to run into Captain Edelgard today, don’t mention this notebook.”

Sylvain’s hand hovered in the air. “Why?” When Felix didn’t answer, he frowned. “You told the GMPD about the notebook and logged it as evidence, didn’t you?”

“...no.”

“Why the hell not?”

Felix clenched his teeth, trying to find a way to verbalize his reasoning without sounding like a head case, which was especially hard when he didn’t even fully know himself why he’d done it. “It didn’t seem like the right thing to do,” he said finally.

“Pretty sure the right thing to do is follow our orders, which include turning over all found evidence to the GMPD like we agreed we would.”

“I’ll worry about my own decisions,” Felix growled, snatching the letter from Sylvain’s fingers. “You have your assignment for today. We’ll meet back at the hotel tonight and compare notes.” He tossed the car keys into Sylvain’s lap. “All yours; I’ll walk.”

Sylvain watched him exit the car, then slid over into the driver’s seat. “Whatever,” he muttered to himself, cranking the engine. “Breakfast time.”

————————————

Instead of cheerful greetings, Felix was met with a head-rending shriek as soon as he entered The Merrow. Bernadetta, the shrieker, dropped the mango she was holding and dashed to the bathroom, knocking Lysithea into the counter and scattering a stack of paper menus. “He’s back!” Annette called towards Manuela’s office, then sighed and came around the counter to pick up the menus. 

“It’s you,” Lysithea said bitterly, rubbing the spot on her abdomen where she’d slammed into the counter. “Couldn’t you warn us before you just show up and set everything on proverbial fire?”

Felix bit back a sour reply with great effort. “My apologies. If I may ask, though, what have I done to give Miss Varley cause to behave like a rabid squirrel just from seeing my face?”

“Don’t mind Bernie,” Manuela said lightly, emerging from her office. “It’s nothing you’ve done, I assure you. She’s...well. She’s just herself. What can I do for you today? I think you’ve already interviewed everyone who’s working today. Ingrid will be in tomorrow, and Mercedes will be back on Tuesday.”

“I’m actually here for food,” Felix said, adding with great discomfort, “and I’m here to see Dom--er, Annette.”

All eyes turned to Annette, who looked up from where she was crouched on the ground and not paying attention. “What?” She clutched the menus to her chest, confused. 

Dorothea’s eyes sparkled, and she leaned on the counter beside Lysithea, chin in her hand. “Oh? You’re here for Annie? Caught your eye, has she?”

Annette squawked, shooting up from the ground like a firework. “What? No! Dorothea! It’s not like that!”

“Don’t be shy,” Dorothea said, winking. “If I were him, I’d fall for you too, Annie.”

Heat was building under Felix’s bun, and he cleared his throat, looking pointedly at a blank space on the wall beside the cash register. Annette slammed the menus on the counter, redder than her hair. “It’s about a job offer! A side hustle! That’s all!”

“A second job?” Manuela asked, sounding wounded. “Am I not working you hard enough? I can give you more hours.”

“No! I’m here too much as it is! Just…” Annette sighed. “Don’t worry about it! You can order your food, Detective, and I’ll come meet you at your table when it’s ready.”

She scuttled away into the kitchen, leaving Felix under the appraising eyes of her coworkers. Manuela, smirking, reminded him that she’d be out at the beach bar if he needed her, then she also disappeared behind a door. There was nothing to be done save to follow Annette’s instructions, so Felix reluctantly stepped up to the counter. Dorothea, who had stepped behind the cash register, smiled at him like an indulgent cat. “Yes,  _ Detective _ , I would be glad to take your order.”

The wicked gleam in her eyes perturbed Felix’s thoughts, shaking them about like seeds in a rattle-gourd. He stared at the menu in vain, unable to focus on the words, and finally threw it back on the counter. “There was a waffle we had the other day that had eggs and bacon…”

“The breakfast waffle? Of course. Anything to drink?”

“Coffee. Black.” He’d had a lot of coffee already, but this day was shaping up to be a six-cup sort of day. 

Dorothea tapped on the register screen. Her nails were long and immaculate, but it seemed she’d filed them into little points. Felix snorted softly; people came up with the most absurd fashion trends. The low sound attracted Dorothea’s attention and she paused, hand hovering over the register. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Her hand was still hovering. “Would you like to put in a little something for Annie? She’s giving up part of her lunch to sit with you. And, after all, it’s uncomfortable to eat in front of someone who isn’t eating themselves, isn’t it?” She winked, looking very much like Manuela in the moment. “I’ll put hers on the house.”

Friends. Friendly. 

_ Let me know when she realizes you have no soul and I’ll try to salvage the mess. _

“Sure,” Felix said, putting a hand in his pocket uncomfortably. “Whatever she likes.”

“Oh, she loves all sweets. Not a big fan of meat, which is helpful to keep in mind.” Dorothea scanned the menu, then tapped on the register again. “There. Good choice, Detective.” She beamed at him as she handed him his receipt. 

Felix couldn’t think of a situation in which he’d need or want to know Dominic’s dietary preferences, but the information was involuntarily tucked away into the same place in his brain where he stored case trivia. He wandered back to Ashe’s bench and sat, looking out the window to avoid any more eye contact with Dorothea or Lysithea. After a few minutes, Bernadetta called from the bathroom: “Is he gone?”

“No,” Lysithea called back, irritably rattling what sounded like the blender. “But you will be if you don’t come back out and do your job.” As he was turned away, Felix couldn’t see if Lysithea’s threats had persuaded Bernadetta to come back to work, but when the next customer came through the door, her ‘welcome’ sounded like it still came from behind the bathroom door. 

The chatter of customers came and went, then footsteps approached the table and Felix turned to see Annette bearing a tray. “Alright, I have your food right here. Here’s the breakfast waffle, here’s the coffee, and then here’s a jam and cream waffle!” She leaned the tray against the bench seat, then slid into the seat across from him. “So, about that offer--”

“This one’s for you,” Felix said, pushing the jam waffle at her. 

She blinked at it, then looked back up at Felix, shocked. “For me?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s…” She floundered for words. “That’s really nice of you! Are you sure?”

“Just eat it,” Felix said, awkwardly leaning back against the bench cushion and crossing his arms. 

Annette paused, then picked the waffle up. “Well, don’t mind if I do! Thank you!” She bit into it and hummed a little in enjoyment. “These are my favorite. I could eat thirty of them.”

Felix bit into his own waffle, remembering how hungry he was, and was begrudgingly impressed. The waffle was crispy on the outside, but tender on the inside, and the mild sweetness was pleasantly overruled by the salt from the bacon. “So. The offer.”

“Right!” Annette startled, swallowing her current bite hard. “The offer!” Her face was smudged with jam, and she took a moment to swipe at it before speaking again. “I thought it over last night and...I accept. I’ll be your tour guide if that’s what you really want. I’ve never been a guide before, but I’ll do my best and make sure you get your money’s worth!”

Her eager, determined face still had a blob of jam on it, and Felix found himself oddly charmed. She was earnest, if not discerning. Guilt at his lie nudged his conscience, but he only nodded. “Good. I can pay in installments, or I can pay a higher lump sum at once; whichever you prefer.”

“I think I’d prefer all at once so we don’t have to keep up with payments.”

“That’s fair.” He fished out his wallet and reached into it, pulling out a number of bills. “How does this sound?”

Annette took the money, her eyes as wide as eggs. “Th-this is a lot!”

It was the average going rate for a personal tour guide, or so the internet had said when Felix had researched the subject. He wondered how much Manuela was paying her employees for Annette to be acting like he’d just handed her a small fortune. “I expect quality tours.”

“Of course!” Annette folded the money and gently put it into the fanny pack she wore as part of her uniform. “They’re gonna be the best tours you’ve ever been on! They’ll knock your socks off! Just you wait! We can--uh oh,” She paused, interrupted by raised voices from across the restaurant. 

“Like I said last week and the week before,” Dorothea’s voice sounded irritated. “I’m not interested. If you want food, just order it and go.”

A male voice spoke. “I can’t understand why you insist on playing hard-to-get. How many times do I have to show my interest before you agree? Do I have to beg? Is that what you want?”

“No, that’s not what I want at all. I’m not playing games with you; I’m being serious.”

Annette slid out of the bench and crept closer, peering around the ocean mural half-wall that served as a divider in the little cafe. Felix followed, putting a hand on the extendable baton in his belt. A man with light orange hair was standing at the counter, arguing with Dorothea, who had backed away and was scowling fiercely. Lysithea stood to the side, tense but unmoving. “I know you can’t be serious because I know that  _ you _ know who I am,” the man said. His clothes were casual, but Felix could tell by the labels and tailoring that they were expensive. 

“I don’t care who you are,” Dorothea shot back. “Men like you are abundant and low in value.”

“Low in value? Now I know you jest.” The man laughed, shaking his head. “I can take you to the finest restaurants in all of Adrestia. I could  _ buy _ the finest restaurants in all of Adrestia--today, if you asked me to. I just want one date, Dorothea. Give me a chance.”

Dorothea threw her hands up in the air. “No! Each and every time you ask the answer will be the same!”

“Do you really want to stay here in this homely beach town? You’re beautiful. You could be a model.” He paced the length of the counter. “I know the CEOs of modeling agencies. I could call them right now and get you a contract. You’re a fool if you don’t see the opportunity here.”

“Go away, Ferdinand.” Dorothea’s voice was a little shaky now. “A no is a no, and this no will always be a no. I don’t want what you have, and I don’t want  _ you _ . Your behavior and not listening to me is exactly--”

“I  _ am  _ listening to you,” Ferdinand interrupted her. “But what you’re saying is not logical. If you’d go out with me, you’d realize that, and you’d thank me later.”

Annette growled low in her throat beside Felix, then stepped around him and into the open. She marched up to the counter with heavy steps and a heavier scowl. “Get lost, Ferdinand,” she instructed, standing tall despite being a head shorter than him. “Get lost and don’t come back, or I’ll call the police.”

Ferdinand snorted. “My family has the police commissioner over every year for the holidays, and we dine with the heads of the GMPD at least once a month. I don’t think that call would go the way you think it would.”

Such blatant implications of corruption were too much for Felix, and he calmly strode over to stand beside Annette, moving his hands so Ferdinand could see his holstered weapon. “Are you suggesting the Garreg Mach Police regularly allow men to harass women as long as the harasser is wealthy? I’d be very interested to see what Chief Charon has to say on the matter. Should I call her now?”

Paling, Ferdinand took a step back. “Who are you?”

“Detective Fraldarius of the Faerghus Provincial Police.” Felix put on his best grumpy expression, which was actually the same as his normal expression. 

“He’ll arrest you if you don’t leave,” Annette said, her hands on her hips. That wasn’t strictly true, but after a moment of consideration, Felix decided to let her threat stand. Perhaps it would make this man pay more attention to what she said in the future. 

Ferdinand’s shoulders, which had been raised defensively, dropped a little in defeat, and his mouth quirked into a sneer. “Ridiculous. If you insist on making a scene, I suppose I have no choice but to take my leave.” He turned his head to look at Dorothea again, his confidence backlit with anger. “My patience won’t last forever. One day you might regret what happened here.”

“Is that a threat?” Felix asked, stepping forward and pushing Annette out of his way.

“Please. I don’t make threats.” Backing away, Ferdinand looked Felix over once more, lip curled, then turned and retreated through the front door. 

Once the door had closed, Dorothea dropped onto a stool near the kitchen door with a shuddering sigh. Lysithea stepped to her side while Annette trotted to the door to peek out and ensure their unwelcome guest had truly departed. A door hinge squeaked, and Bernadette poked her head around the corner. She bit her lip when she saw Felix, but her worry for Dorothea overtook her anxiety, and she crossed the restaurant to put a hand on Dorothea’s head, eyeing Felix the entire way as if he were a crocodile that might strike without warning. “Did he leave?” She asked, petting Dorothea’s head gently.

“He’s gone,” Annette called, giving them a thumbs up. 

“I’m...I’m so  _ tired _ of dealing with him…!” Dorothea’s voice was heavy with tears that wouldn’t fall. “He’s such a--” She let out a string of expletives the police academy trainees would have been proud of. 

Lysithea bit her lip. “Dorothea…”

“He…” Dorothea’s husky voice dropped. “He scares me.”

“A piece of trash like him couldn’t do anything to you,” Annette said fiercely, kneeling beside her. “If he tried, you know--ah...I mean...well, he’d get, uh, in trouble. Big trouble. Right, Detective?” She looked over at Felix, her eyes begging for help.

Felix gritted his molars. This wasn’t something he should get further involved in. He was here to find Ashe Ubert--nothing else. They should be talking with someone in the GMPD. “Yeah. I’ll pass the word along to the Captain and…” Annette looked unconvinced. “...I’ll keep an eye out for him, too.”

“See?” Annette shook Dorothea’s arm. “The detective is gonna help. It’s okay.” 

Lysithea stole a glance at Felix, then lowered her voice and whispered something to the other girls, who paused before nodding. “Bernie, you do it,” she said, her voice louder now. “It’s slow today anyway. Do you want me to call Claude in?”

Dorothea shook her head, standing and putting on a brave face. “No. I’m okay now. I just needed a little moment, that’s all. Thanks, girls.” She turned a dazzling smile towards Felix. “And thank you, Detective.”

_ Damn it. _ “Does he have a history of violence?” Felix asked.

“Not that we know of,” Dorothea answered. “Honestly, it’s fine. I was just being overdramatic.”

“No, you weren’t. Anyone would be upset after what he said. Anyway,” Annette turned to Felix. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“For our first tour excursion?”

“Oh,” Felix blinked. “I hadn’t expected it to start today.”

Annette frowned. “Is that too soon?”

“No. It’s fine.”

“Great! Then drop by tonight at closing and we’ll go from here.”

Felix nodded, keenly aware of the way the other waitresses were looking from him to Annette and trying to figure out what was going on. “I’m going to finish my breakfast now,” he informed them as a group of teenagers noisily entered the shop. “I’ll be over here if you need me.” He walked away, silently cursing himself.  _ Why did I say that? I’m not their personal rent-a-cop. _ “But don’t!” He called over his shoulder.

Annette tilted her head. “Don’t what?”

“Need me!”

“Oh. Uh...right!”

————————————

“These seem to be promising leads. Hunt them down as quickly as you can.” Captain Blaiddyd’s voice was as composed as always, but it had an edge of almost child-like eagerness. “I don’t need to remind you how important time is in a case like this.”

“I’m aware,” Felix replied through his teeth, gripping his phone so hard in annoyance it made a small popping sound. “Officer Gautier and I will meet back up tonight to go over the new information in detail. If he comes up with anything important, I’ll let you know.”

“Be sure you do.” 

Felix paused, taking a deep breath. The only thing that annoyed him more than Dimitri Blaiddyd was explaining himself to Dimitri Blaiddyd. “There’s one more thing.” The line was silent as the Captain waited for him to continue. “I found a piece of evidence that I believe could be a breakthrough in this case.”

“And?”

“I haven’t turned it in to Captain Edelgard yet. I know we agreed to work cooperatively, but I believe they will take it away for processing before I get to personally examine it, which could cripple my investigation.”

“What manner of evidence?”

“A notebook, written by the missing. Officer Gautier had nothing to do with this decision. You can be angry with me if you choose, but I stand strong in my conviction that it is vital that I am allowed to read through it uninterrupted as long as I am taking the proper precautions not to contaminate it.”

Captain Blaiddyd was silent again, and worry tightened Felix’s shoulders. Finally the captain spoke again, his voice still calm. “Good.”

Felix exhaled sharply in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Take as long as you need to examine the evidence. You can turn it over to the Garreg Mach Police when you’re finished.”

This wasn’t the response Felix had expected; Captain Blaiddyd was usually a man of rules and formalities. “And what of our agreement with Captain Edelgard’s team?”

“I think they would agree that it is more important to find Ashe Ubert than to toe the line on cumbersome protocols. Wouldn’t you?”

Felix pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it, incredulous. The screen blinked on, showing ‘CAPTAIN BOAR’ as the caller ID. “Of course I agree. I’m just surprised you do.”

The captain laughed, and Felix flinched. “Do what you need to do, Detective. I have full faith in you.”

“...Understood...Sir.” Felix pushed the button to end the call, his face still wrinkled in a mask of bafflement. He held his phone up a little longer, as if trying to convince himself that he hadn’t hallucinated what had just happened. He was too valuable to be fired, but he had expected a drawn-out admonishment and possibly a call later from Captain Edelgard herself, just so she could unhinge _her_ jaw and chew on his sorry carcass as well. Instead, Captain Blaiddyd had sounded...pleased.

Felix shoved his phone in his pocket and pulled out his carton of cigarettes, shaking one out. As he exhaled, smoke blooming out like a dragon’s morning breath, he squinted, becoming more and more suspicious. “What game is that boar playing,” he muttered, his words making little curls in the smoke. 

————————————

“That’s what you’re going to wear on a date?” Dorothea asked, frowning at Felix’s weapon belt and badge. 

“ _ It’s not a date _ ,” Felix and Annette said simultaneously. Felix crossed his arms, uncomfortable, and Annette glared at her coworker. “I’m taking him on tours of Garreg Mach, or at least I will if you don’t scare him away!”

Dorothea rolled her eyes, though her mouth was quirked in amusement. “Alright, alright. My point still stands, though. You can’t expect to have a normal night out on the town when you look like you’re still on duty.”

“I…” Felix, who’d been about to retort that technically he  _ was  _ still on duty since this was all in the name of the investigation, caught himself and closed his mouth. “I never expect a normal night. That’s the life of a cop.”

Dorothea looked pointedly at Annette, who pressed her lips together before speaking. “She  _ does  _ have a point, Detective. You’ll make everyone uncomfortable. You can’t write a good article when all the locals you meet are scared of you.” She smiled apologetically. “How about we drop off your weapon belt in a safe place, and you can put your badge in your pocket?”

“And what am I supposed to do if a fight breaks out downtown and I don’t have any of my tools?”

“You call the GMPD like everyone else,” Dorothea said. “And that doesn’t happen often in Garreg Mach, anyway.”

“Besides, don’t all cops know...I dunno...martial arts or something?” Annette asked. 

Dorothea nodded. “You could take someone down without weapons--I’m sure of it. Just look at you.”

Felix’s face was getting hot. She was flattering him, the minx, and it was working. “Fine! Fine. I’ll leave the belt off.” 

“Great!” Dorothea clapped. “Much better!”

“Let me go grab my wallet and we can leave,” Annette said as Felix unclipped his badge. 

Lysithea caught her as she came out of the break room a few minutes later, pulling her to the wall and looking around furtively. “Why are you doing this?”

“I need the money,” Annette replied simply.

“Money? What do you need topside money for?”

Annette peeked around the corner, making sure Felix was out of earshot. “I’m going to find him, and I need money for that.”

Lysithea’s suspicion melted into pity. “Annie…” She sighed deeply. “Well. Manuela said she thinks this police officer asking you to be his guide is a lucky break anyway.”

“Really? Why?” Annette wrinkled her nose, confused. 

“Because.” Lysithea also peeked, reassuring herself of Felix’s distance. “It’s a good idea to play nice with the detectives--get them on our side. Make friends with him and see if you can find out what sort of evidence they have. I don’t think we were sloppy, but that officer’s constant presence here may not just be because he likes our waffles.”

Annette frowned, a worry line appearing between her brows. “He said he didn’t want to talk about the case, though.”

“Bring it up casually, as an aside. Charm it out of him.”

“Right,” Annette agreed, nodding. “I’ll do my best.”

“And be careful!” Lysithea added as Annette walked away. 

————————————

Sylvain checked the clock and groaned. Ten o’clock. He’d been here for six hours watching this town square, but all he had seen were joggers, cute couples, and packs of teenagers playing on their phones. Some of the teenagers he recognized from that morning when he and Felix were parked at five in the morning, and some were new. What were they playing? At this point Sylvain was so bored he’d play whatever it was with them just to have something to do besides sit in the car that smelled like fast food fries. 

“This sucks,” he mumbled, sinking deeper into his seat. What was Ubert on about, writing cat breeds on the map? The only cat he’d seen all day was one battered old tomcat napping atop a harbor rampart. 

Maybe he should go back to the flat and have another look at the map to see if they’d missed any details that might help this all make sense. Now that he’d mentally chewed on it all day, running his eyes over the map again might spark an idea. Even better, it would give him an excuse to leave this spot. He truly felt that if he stared at the bricks in the square any longer, they might start speaking to him.

Before he could reach for his seatbelt, his phone buzzed in his pocket. For a second Sylvain thought that Felix could sense that he was about to leave his post and had called to yell at him, but the caller ID on the screen was unfamiliar. “Officer Gautier speaking,” he said, putting the phone up to his ear.

The voice that answered was low and brusque. “Officer, this is Lieutenant von Vestra with the Garreg Mach Police Department. Your presence is required urgently at the station. We’ve tried to contact Detective Fraldarius, but he isn’t picking up his phone.”

“What’s the situation?”

“We’ve found a body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! It's been a bit harder to find big chunks of time to write around the holidays but I hope quality makes up for the time in between chapters...  
> Meanwhile Felix is about to go on his first date and he is NOT READY.  
> Enjoy and have a wonderful holiday season!!
> 
> machiroads: HE'S TOO DANGEROUS TO KEEP AROUND. THROW HIM IN THE SEA!
> 
> Ren_Maisley: Your guess was too high IQ for me...but a threatening letter could be a cipher of sort?????? OR maybe a secret code?? Or maybe just a letter xD
> 
> LunaClefairy: Ah, yes, playing fast and loose like this with rules (even with Dimitri's blessing) definitely won't come back to bite him in the angsty ass. Definitely not. For sure.
> 
> Enilda_1201: We all need someone to be charismatic for us so we don't have to bother. Being charismatic takes too many calories. Also Felix has NOTHING under control.
> 
> halcyon_autumn: Felix *desperately googles how to flirt* right right uh....what's uh...the best murder you've ever heard of? and FUFUFUFU you will find out exactly where mermaids fit in soon...soon...


	6. The Body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some graphic violence details ahead, just warning y'all with sensitive stomachs

CHAPTER SIX: The Body 

The summer sun was still hot enough to make Felix’s back perspire as he walked, despite his watch reading a little after eight in the evening. He’d shoved his hands in his pockets in an attempt to look casual, but it felt like he’d inadvertently built an invisible wall between Dominic and himself. Once or twice she’d glanced up at him, but she, too, seemed ill at ease. 

He racked his brains for conversation topics--anything to cut through the silence--but found only threads and snippets of conversations he’d recently had with Sylvain, or flickers of headlines he’d seen on newspapers and online articles. “Your cafe closes early for a beach town,” he finally said, looking around at the colorful storefronts they were passing. “Seems like it would be bad for business.”

She startled at his voice. “Oh! Well. We open early, so it only makes sense.”

“Don’t you have a bar in the back? I’d think the evening would be the best time to attract customers. The sun doesn’t even set until after nine.”

“I don’t think Manuela wants to deal with tourist nightlife,” Annette explained. “I know I wouldn’t. And as you can see--” She spread her arms, gesturing around, “--there are plenty of bars for people to choose from.”

“Are there other bars that open to the beach directly like you do?”

“No, but Garreg Mach prohibits drinking on the beaches after sundown, anyway.”

Felix raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Fascinating.” She didn’t reply, and the quiet hung in the air again like thick clouds. “Where are we going?” He asked finally. 

“The town square,” Annette replied, pointing diagonally to the right. “I thought any good tour should start in the center. Well, the proverbial center, not the literal center. The literal center is Durban’s discount mattresses and that didn’t really fit the theme I’m going for.”

The town square...a jolt of memory slowed Felix’s feet and he shook his head. “Let’s...let’s go there another day. Not today.” 

“What? Why?”

“It’s…” Felix grimaced. He didn’t want to go to the square because Sylvain was (supposed to be) there on stakeout, watching for unusual activity that may make Ubert’s map make sense. The very last thing he needed was to be watched through police-issue binoculars and teased endlessly for gadding about in public with a woman. “I’d hoped we’d start on the beach.”

Annette’s face blanked, but she fixed it quickly and nodded. “Yeah, the beach! That makes sense. This is a beach town, after all, right? Silly me.” She looked around, blinking, “Uh...right! Then we can start...over there! Follow me, Detective!”

“Just call me Felix.”

Annette’s feet faltered again. “Are you sure? Not...Detective...Felix?”

“Just Felix is fine. I’m supposed to be off duty now, right?”

From the look Annette was giving him, Felix couldn’t tell if she was pleased or alarmed. The eye contact made him uncomfortable, though, so he looked away, feigning interest in a nearby manhole cover. 

“Those are unique, you know,” Annette’s words were hesitant. 

“What are?”

“Those manhole covers. Different cities and towns have unique manhole covers. Did you know that?”

Did he know that? “No. I didn’t know that.”

“See?” The sudden brightness in her voice caught Felix’s attention, and he turned to see her face lit up like a karaoke machine. “Tour Guide Annie taught you your first fact, and there’s more where that came from. You can count on me, F-Felix!” Satisfied with having conquered calling him by his first name, she whirled around and strode off toward the beach she’d indicated earlier. 

After a glance at the manhole cover, which was patterned with an iron mermaid surrounded by conch shells, Felix followed her. As his long legs closed the gap between them easily, a low sound floated past, carried and then whisked away by the sea wind. It was...a melody. 

Humming. 

As if he’d stepped on an exposed nerve, a jolt shot through his body, and he breathed in a soft gasp. A wave of blank awareness rolled down his spine--not unpleasant; almost nostalgic, like the smell of a childhood home you’d forgotten existed--and then stopped. 

“Are you okay?” Annette’s voice broke the spell, bringing him sharply back to reality. “Detective? Er...I mean...Felix? Hello?”

“What the…” Felix looked around, shocked to find himself on a boardwalk instead of the sidewalk down which he was sure he’d just been walking. “What just happened?”

Annette frowned, confused. “That’s what I was going to ask you. I turned around to tell you we were here, but you had gone all spacey on me.”

“How did we get here?”

“What…?”

“How did we get here,” Felix pointed to the boardwalk, “when we were just on the sidewalk?”

The wrinkle between Annette’s brows deepened, as did her confusion. “We...uh...walked?”

“Walked?” Felix’s volume was rising the longer he thought about what had just happened. “How?”

Annette’s confusion was quickly turning to mild terror. “With...with our feet?” 

Felix brought a hand to his forehead, which was cool if not a little sweaty. Maybe it was the heat… “Can I sit down for a minute?”

“Sure!” Annette cast about frantically for a place to sit. “Oh, here!” Finding a bench nearby, she beckoned him over. When he sat, she leaned over and peered into his face. “Are you dehydrated? What happened?”

He shook his head. “I’m fine. I just...I heard...and then suddenly we were...but I didn’t remember walking…” He gritted his teeth, feeling like an idiot. _This sounds ridiculous_. 

“Could you have low blood sugar?”

“I’m not diabetic.”

“Sure, but you’ve been working all day. You can have low blood sugar without having diabetes.” She fished in her pocket, pulling out a brightly colored candy. “Here. See if this helps.”

Felix wanted to argue, but her face was determined enough to dissuade him. Still feeling foolish, he unwrapped the candy and popped it in his mouth. “...thanks.” 

“No problem. Let’s just sit here for a minute.” She sat on the bench next to him with a sigh. “I can tell you about the beach from here, anyway. This is Bottle Beach--the first beach opened to the public in Garreg Mach. It used to be part of a big estate owned by--”

Felix let her talk, his mind wandering as he rolled the candy around in his mouth. He felt normal now; he wasn’t dizzy or weak, and his mouth wasn’t dry with dehydration. The odd blankness from before felt like a mirage in the desert--maybe it had really happened, and maybe it hadn’t. Maybe he wasn’t sleeping enough. He tossed and turned even on the best nights, but lately he’d lain awake even later than usual, thinking about the Ubert case. 

Maybe he’d had too much coffee today, and it was addling his brains. Sylvain was constantly telling him how he needed to cut down on his coffee consumption and cigarette smoking, suggestions which Felix ignored. It could be that that irreverent cad was right this time. _I’ll keep it to three cups maximum tomorrow,_ he told himself. 

“--and that’s why they call it Bottle Beach. Your readers might be interested to know that couples often come here near the solstice to throw their own glass bottles out into the water in the hopes their wishes will come true. That’s discouraged by local law enforcement, though, because technically it’s littering.” Annette finally stopped.

Felix nodded as if he’d been listening the whole time. “Right. Excellent tale.”

“I told you I’m good at storytelling!” Annette grinned, looking proud of herself. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah. I’m fine now.” 

Annette stood. “Good, ‘cuz today’s little tour isn’t over yet! We’ve got another stop to make.”

“And where is that?”

“My favorite place in Garreg Mach!” Annette’s eyes glazed over hungrily. “I hope you had supper!” 

————————————

 _This is hell_ , Felix thought, wrinkling his nose. Even the air in this bakery was sweet--sweet enough to give his sinuses cavities, let alone his teeth. _How does she do this?_

Annette sat opposite him at the table, strategically examining an egg tart to find the optimal bite. Strewn between them were four plates that had once held different types of desserts but now held mostly crumbs and streams of fruit sauce. The majority of it had been eaten by Annette, with Felix only picking at the treats. 

He didn’t blame her. She didn’t know how ardently he detested sweets, so it was only natural for her to bring him to a place she enjoyed. She had even let him pick out what they had ordered, though in the end he’d just pointed randomly at four items that looked vaguely edible. “Yes, yes, this egg tart is…” Annette took another bite, a dreamy lack of focus in her eyes. “I rate it...an eight! No! Eight point five on the Annie Scale! The custard is silky, the vanilla is fragrant, and the browning on the top is perfect...but the crust is just...how do I put it…” She frowned, descending deep into thought. “It’s like...the nuts weren’t ground finely enough. What do you think?”

“I…” Felix grabbed his fork, picking up a little dollop of custard on the end of the tines and popping it into his mouth. She was right about the texture but it was...so sweet… “This is my first egg tart, so I can’t have an informed opinion,” he said, trying to swallow it down quickly.

“Really? I know they’re more popular in Leicester, but I thought they were common in Faerghus, too!” Annette scanned his plate, frowning. “You’re not eating much...you haven’t even touched the macarons. Those are my favorite!”

The little cookies had been taunting him the entire meal with their bright colors that promised to pummel his pancreas into submission. Felix looked at Annette’s happy, expectant face for a moment, then picked up the macaron that looked the least offensive and bit into it. It was filled with dark, dark chocolate, which was a pleasant surprise. “...this one isn’t bad,” he said, holding the other half out to her. 

Clearly unafraid of sharing germs, she crunched into the other half of the cookie and immediately grimaced. “Ah…” She coughed into her napkin. “So bitter…”

Felix smirked. _A child’s palate_. “Here, eat this. It’ll get the taste out of your mouth.” He forked over the half of a mont blanc left on his plate onto hers. 

She took a bite, melting back into satisfaction as she chewed. “That’s better. That chocolate was a four, but this one is an...eight point eight on the Annie Scale.”

Watching her eat with gusto wasn’t the worst way Felix had ever spent time. He leaned his chin on his fist as she licked the remaining meringue off her fork. “Don’t women usually worry about gaining weight at places like this?”

She froze mid-lick, a look of horror dawning on her face. “What kind of dessert conversation is that?” She berated him, fork still in hand. “It’s not like I come here every day! This is a special occasion, so mind your own business!”

Felix bit the inside of his cheek, mentally filing his previous question in the _bad conversation topics_ folder in his brain. “...Apologies.” A soft clink told him that Annette had laid down her fork, adding to his guilt, so to punish himself he scooped up another bite of the egg tart. “It’s...really good…” he lied, struggling not to let his distaste show on his face. 

When he looked back at her, she was watching him with a soft sort of pitying irritation. “Geez,” she muttered as he gulped his mouthful down. “I hope you’re better at writing than you are at talking.” As soon as the words were out, she clapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks flaming red. “That was rude! I’m sorry! Oh, get it together, Annie!”

She slapped her cheeks a few times, muttering to herself, and Felix felt the corners of his mouth rising. _Ridiculous_. Maybe he should slap his own cheeks. “Was this our last stop?” He asked, straightening his face back into his usual expression.

“For today, yes. Some people say to save the best for last, but I was hoping to start us off with a bang at my favorite place…” Annette looked around at the mostly-empty plates. “Er, if you’re done, we can go now.”

She started to rise, but Felix leaned back in his chair. “I don’t...mind staying a little longer.”

“...You don’t?”

“I haven’t finished my coffee,” he explained, not meeting her eyes. _Friends._ He was here to make _friends_ and figure out a way to get information out of her. “And I’m in no hurry.”

Her eyebrows rose, but she sat back down in her seat. “Alright then.” 

The silence grew heavy again, like at the beginning of the evening, and panic flickered in Felix’s stomach. How was he going to do this? How did one bring up murder casually? How could he keep his true intentions from being obvious? Sylvain could find a way to slip it into conversation, but Felix had no conversation to even work questions into. _This was a waste of both of our time. I should have let Sylvain take this mission after all. Damn you, Dominic and your suspicious cafe of secrets, and damn myself for letting it get like this_. 

No. He had a job to do. No matter how hard it was, he couldn’t give up. _Just say something_ , he thought, twisting words a hundred different ways in his mind but finding none that seemed worth speaking aloud. _Ask if she ever brought Ubert here...there’s a start!_

He looked up to speak, but stopped when he saw that Annette had also opened her mouth and was wearing a pained expression similar to the one he knew must be on his own face. “Ah,” she said, also stopping her words. “W-were you going to ask something?”

“...Nothing important,” Felix replied. “You can go first.”

“Oh, no, I was just going to say something dumb. You go ahead!”

“Er--”

“Oh my _goddess_!” A different voice called across the bakery, breaking the tension. They turned to see Hilda and Claude threading through tables toward them, Claude with difficulty as his arms were full of shopping bags. “What is going on here?” Hilda asked, delighted. 

“Hilda!” Annette squeaked. “What are...what are you doing here?”

“I met Claude and some of the girls at the mall and I always come for an eclair after shopping,” Hilda explained. “What are _you_ doing?”

“You, uh, you know the detective, right?”

“Of _course_ I know the detective. I just didn’t know you two...hmm... _got along_ so well.”

“We don’t,” Felix interjected, hoping to stop a misunderstanding before it happened.

Annette’s lower lip poked out, but she nodded in agreement. “Yeah! We don’t get along at all! This is a business arrangement!”

Claude made a face. “Business arrangement? With a cop?”

“I’m off duty.” 

“Right! He’s off duty!” Annette nodded again, a little too emphatically. “I’m giving him mini tours of Garreg Mach so he can write a travel article!”

Hilda looked from Annette’s face to Felix’s, then shrugged. “Suit yourself. Found any clues yet on Ashe, Detective?”

And there it was--slipped as casually into the conversation as if she were asking his favorite pastry. Her audacity was impressive. Annette seemed to think so too, for she gaped at her coworker openly for a moment before shutting her mouth and looking to Felix for an answer. 

Felix crossed his arms like a barrier against his own discomfort. “None that I’m willing to discuss with someone without proper clearance. Haven’t you ever seen any crime shows on television?”

“Yeah, yeah, it was worth a try,” Hilda said, laughing. “We need to be going, anyway, after I buy Claude a croissant for being such a _big strong man_ and carrying my bags. Wasn’t that great of him?”

“You didn’t mention I’d be carrying bags when I agreed to come with you,” Claude grumbled. 

“How do you expect me to carry that many bags? Look at how thin my arms are! And look at how strong yours are!”

Claude _tsk_ ’d at her, but his eyes were smiling. “I think I’m going to demand two croissants instead of just one. One croissant for each arm I used to carry bags, see.” 

“Do you think money grows on trees?” Hilda scolded. “Fine, fine. Anyway, have a good rest of your evening, Annie. Don’t _stay out too late_ ,” she finished, a peculiar emphasis on her words. Felix bristled at the implication. 

“Oh,” Annette looked at the night sky through the bakery windows, surprised. “It’s already dark.”

“Mmhmm. Not that I don’t trust you, Detective.” Hilda smiled at them. “Bye now!” She and Claude walked away toward the display cabinets, leaving Annette and Felix in silence again. 

Felix sipped his coffee as the two collected their pastries. His phone buzzed twice, but the caller ID was blocked both times. _Damn telemarketers_ , he swore silently, clicking the screen off and watching Hilda and Claude bicker over who got the first bite of eclair. Once they had left the bakery, he put his cup down and fixed Annette with a stare. “I wasn’t being completely honest.”

“About what?”

“There is something I can share about Ubert’s case...but only with you.” 

Annette’s eyebrows rose again. “Why me?”

“The same reason I chose you to be my tour guide,” Felix replied. “You seem…” _Gullible_ . _Dupable_. “Trustworthy.” 

“I-I do?”

“Are you not?”

“Of course I am! If...if you want to talk about your case with me, I don’t mind.” Annette swallowed hard, folding her hands on the table. 

She’d given in even more easily than expected. He’d expected her to push back a little--perhaps become suspicious, or accuse him of trying to interview her off the record. _Then again_ , Felix thought, _who wouldn’t be curious about a case involving someone you claim you considered a friend?_ If she was curious, then it was all the better. Perhaps she kept her eyes and ears open and had noticed something important.

He reached into his satchel and pulled out Ubert’s journal, laying it on the table after clearing a spot. “I found this in Ubert’s apartment. I haven’t had time to read it thoroughly yet, but there’s a couple of things I was hoping you’d be able to help me identify.”

“Is that...a diary?”

“Of sorts, yes. But there’s more.” He flipped through the pages, plucking the lock of hair and the letter from their hiding spots. “Does this hair match anyone you know?”

The answer was obvious as soon as Annette laid eyes on the hair; Felix heard the click of her teeth as she gritted and the uptick in her breathing rate. _This_ was why he’d chosen her. _This_ was why she was the weak link. 

Her eyes remained focused on the hair, and Felix could almost see the lie forming in her mouth. “Take your time,” he said, still dangling the lock in front of her. “This is just a shot in the dark.” He didn’t want to push her or his luck, and he’d already gotten valuable information from her body language. His phone buzzed again, but he ignored it.

She finally looked up at him with eyes like a cornered mouse, her mouth tight. “It’s...hard to tell from just that. I feel like I’ve seen multiple people with that color hair.”

A strategic answer. 

Felix laid the hair down and picked up the note instead, unfolding it carefully. “How about this letter? Does any of this ring a bell?”

This time, what seemed like genuine surprise crossed Annette’s face as she read, which startled Felix. So she recognized one and not the other...or she’d suddenly become a better actress, which was doubtful. The letter and the hair must not be from the same person...or maybe it was and Annette hadn’t been close enough with that person to recognize their handwriting. Or Annette wasn’t involved at all in whatever shady business was happening at The Merrow.

Felix’s phone buzzed a fourth time, but this time it also played a little jingle--Sylvain’s ringtone. When he checked the screen, his partner’s number flashed across the screen. Irritated at the interruption, he swiped to answer the call. “This had better be important,” he growled. 

Annette picked up the letter, bringing it closer to her nose. After a moment she looked up urgently at Felix, but his attention had been thoroughly diverted by whatever was being said on the phone. The detective’s face had paled, and a muscle was twitching in his jaw. In the interest of not being a bother, Annette returned to staring at the letter. “Where have I…?”

“Understood. I’ll be right there.” Felix’s voice was grim. As soon as he hit the button to end the call, he swore loudly. “Shit, shit, _shit_.”

“Detective?”

“I have to go,” Felix replied brusquely, dropping the lock of hair back into the diary and looking for the letter.

Annette held the letter up but didn’t hand it to him immediately. “Before you go, there’s something I--”

Felix reached for the letter, snatching it from her fingers. “Can it wait?”

“It _can_ , but I think you’d like to know…” When he didn’t reply, she reached out and took hold of his sleeve. “Det--Felix…! I think I know who wrote that letter.”

He stopped, his attention back on her. “Who?”

“We have these comment cards at work where customers can write suggestions, and I’m the one who goes through them. You’re not supposed to sign them, but some customers do and--yes, I’m _getting_ to the point--I’ve seen that handwriting before.” She took the letter back, unfolding it and running her eyes over it once more. “I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I’d say I’m ninety-five percent sure that this is Lorenz Gloucester’s handwriting.”

Felix blinked, letting this new information wash over him. “Lorenz...do you still have the comment cards?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to look.” 

“Then look.” Felix pulled a pen from his pocket and jotted down a number on a napkin, sliding it across the table to her. “And call me.”

He swept past her towards the door, but she stopped him one last time. “You said...you hadn’t read the whole diary yet, right?”

“Not yet. Why?”

She shook her head. “Just wondering. See you...soon?”

He gave her a terse nod as a reply and left, letting the bakery door slam behind him. Annette stood for a moment longer, then grabbed the napkin with his number, stuffing it into her pocket.

————————————

“Felix!” Sylvain’s voice carried over the police chatter and click of camera shutters. “Over here!”

The beach should have been dark, but stand lights had been erected in a circle by forensics, turning the night scene as bright as day. Felix squinted, holding a hand up to shield his eyes as they adjusted. He’d buckled his weapons belt back on his hips, and the weight was comforting. “Is it him?” He asked as soon as he was close enough to his partner to speak at a normal volume. 

Sylvain shook his head. “No. It’s not Ubert.”

Relief weakened Felix’s knees. He closed his eyes, taking in a breath with lungs that had loosened. “Who is it?”

“Local man by the name of Ferdinand von Aegir. He had his ID in his pocket, along with a wallet that had been emptied of cash, though some credit cards and gift cards were left.”

Sylvain was giving him a pointed look, and Felix knit his brows at the mention of the name. Ferdinand… “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered, realization striking. 

“His name came up in our interviews,” Sylvain prompted, nodding along. “Dominic thought he was the man Arnault was referring to in her statement.”

“It goes deeper than that,” Felix said, jerking his head and moving toward the cluster of forensics technicians clustered around what he assumed was the cadaver. Sylvain fell into step beside him. “I hadn’t told you yet what happened today while I was at The Merrow.” 

He recapped the scene between Ferdinand and Dorothea at the cafe, including the veiled threat that had been dropped at the end. Sylvain listened, his eyebrows inching up his forehead higher and higher the more he heard. “He mentioned the commissioner? We’ve got to tell Captain Edelgard about this. If this guy was using his connections to harass women, there’s no telling who else he tried to bully. He could have been in debt to drug dealers, or threatened the wrong person...even in a small place like this, there are people who take that sort of thing _very_ seriously.”

Felix nodded, dropping the thread of the conversation as they arrived at the heart of the crime scene. Technicians adjusted to allow the two through, though their work continued. He squatted beside the body, sweeping it with his senses like he’d been trained at the academy. 

Von Aegir was supine in the sand, arms comfortably by his side. His legs were bent, but his hips were twisted to the left enough that his knees touched the ground. Several shallow wounds that appeared defensive in origin had been left on his hands and face, but none were serious. The mortal wound, or what Felix assumed was the mortal wound, was the deep gouge stretching from the cadaver’s left shoulder nearly down to his navel. The center of the gouge was a mess of tissue and clotted blood as if someone had repeatedly hacked at him with a dull hawkbill blade.

“This wasn’t a simple robbery,” Felix commented, pointing at the grisly wound in von Aegir’s chest. “Robbers tend to bludgeon their victims or stab them, not shred their chest.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Sylvain snorted, earning a glare from his partner. “Here, take my flashlight and have a closer look.”

Felix leaned over the body, holding his breath, and then jerked back and swore. “Sothis…!”

“That was my reaction, too,” Sylvain said. “Usually when someone steals your heart it’s a good thing, but not in this case.”

Slipping on a pair of gloves, Felix circled the body to get a better view. The surrounding sand was dark with blood, and he knelt again in a clean area. “Either this was a crime of passion, or we can rule out any sort of medical, butchery, or cooking expertise. The heart wasn’t so much carved out as torn out.” He picked up one of the cadaver’s hands and examined it. “At least a couple of broken fingers. He was overpowered by someone strong enough to wrestle him to the ground. I’d carefully rule out a woman as the offender, unless we know of one six feet tall and built like a bull. Was the heart beside the body? Where is it?”

Sylvain shrugged. “Great question. Officers are sweeping the beach as we speak, but no one has found it yet. It’s starting to look like whoever took the cash in his wallet took his heart, too. That means that whoever did this is into some _real_ dark shit.”

“Do you think this is connected to the Ubert case?”

“Dunno.”

One of the forensics technicians spoke up, pausing in her scraping of the cadaver’s fingernails. “Doubtful. This isn’t the first time we’ve had a murder like this here and it won’t be the last.”

Felix turned to her sharply. “What do you mean? This has happened before?”

The tech nodded. “It’s not often, but every now and again a body shows up on the beach with his or her heart torn out. The last one was at least twenty-some years ago, but here we are again. I doubt it will ever stop as long as those damn mermaid mythicists keep telling those ridiculous stories.”

“Mermaid mythicists?” Sylvain repeated skeptically.

The tech looked up, surprised. “Haven’t you heard about Garreg Mach’s famous ‘murderous mermaids’? Tearing hearts out to stay eternally young?”

Images of the old man at the coffee shop as well as Dominic’s smile on the first day at The Merrow through Felix’s memory. _I heard_ someone _hasn’t heard the tales of Garreg Mach’s murderous mermaids, and I’m here to fix that. Here at The Merrow we pride ourselves on historical--_

“Didn’t Dominic try to tell you that story on our first day?” Sylvain asked, smirking. “Wasn’t that when you crushed her dreams like grapes in a wine press?”

“You laughed at me for listening to that codger reading the newspaper, so shut it,” Felix snapped. 

Sylvain’s smirk wilted. “That’s...well. I guess we both dropped the ball here.”

“I’ll go back and ask her tomorrow,” Felix said, standing. “Mermaids didn’t do this, but hearing a myth that might have inspired the killer may give us some insight.”

“Like you said--all leads are good leads,” Sylvain agreed. 

Felix looked down at Ferdinand again, a cold shiver running down his neck in a way he hadn’t felt since he was a trainee. _It’s just seeing him alive and then dead on the same day_ , he told himself. _Anyone would be put off. Get it together, Felix._ He shook his head and the faintest ghost of a smile crossed his lips as he remembered Annette saying something similar at the bakery.

The smile was short-lived, for the dullness in Ferdinand’s blank, staring eyes reminded Felix that there was a man missing as well as a killer on the loose, and he was no closer to finding them than he had been when he’d arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone's holidays were lovelier than Ferdinand's evening here...  
> Question: What is Annette doing bringing sweets-hating Felix to a bakery????  
> Answer: her best :(  
> Where would you all take Felix on your first date? Or Annie!
> 
> halcyon_autumn: no, no, you're obsessing just the right amount. keep going and you'll unravel the whole thing! real talk though, you're picking up on details... >_>
> 
> machiroads: Ferdie and Lorenz absolutely deserve each other, and Dorothea is ALWAYS a queen. AND MAYBE I PLAY POKEMON GO AT 5 IN THE MORNING YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT? DIDN'T, DID YA?
> 
> Ren_Maisley: O SHIT BIG BRAIN TIME
> 
> SuperNerd92: Is he suspicious of her? And were you born in 92?
> 
> Enilda_1201: Well, was it a disaster? And bro you hit the nail right on the head. I guffawed when I read your comment. Also anything that gets teenagers out of bed at five in the morning should immediately be considered suspicious.
> 
> Saus: "i know we played a whole ass game where we make the students commit literal murder but it's still hard to imagine bernie doing it" like this is the essence of fanfiction right here. we can stop now. you've found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
> 
> KixaMiza: Hello!!! Thank you so much for commenting! I hope you continue to enjoy the story!!! May the blessing of Claude's glorious dumptruck bum be upon you!


	7. The Reprimand

CHAPTER SEVEN: The Reprimand 

“Out of the way, out of the way, police coming through!” Sylvain waved his arms in an attempt to clear a path to the front door of the police station, which was being blocked by hordes of reporters shoving microphones in the faces of anyone who looked remotely involved. “No, we’re not giving statements at this time.” 

Felix ground his teeth. “ _Move_ ,” he snarled at a journalist who had thrown herself in front of him. “If you spill my coffee I swear to Saint Seiros I will break your camera.”

The two finally reached the door and wrenched it open, then slammed it in the reporters’ faces. “Good to see the time-honored institute of the press is still thriving,” Sylvain joked, leaning against the door and patting himself to ensure all his tools and weapons were where he expected them to be.

Felix’s bun had come undone, so he set his coffee cup on a nearby cabinet while he fixed it. “Who leaked the story to the vultures?” He wondered aloud in a garbled voice, his hair tie held between his teeth.

“A body was found missing a heart,” An oily voice answered. “A missing person is one thing, but a murder is too sensational to keep quiet, don’t you agree?”

“Lieutenant von Vestra,” Felix greeted the officer. 

“Detective,” the lieutenant responded. “I’m here to bring you to the conference room as you are likely not familiar with the station’s layout. It can be a little...complicated.”

Felix picked up his coffee again and took a sip, taking the opportunity to look the lieutenant over through the steam of the drink. “I’m sure we would have managed.” He couldn’t put the reason why into words, but something about von Vestra made him uneasy.

“Ignore him,” Sylvain said, stepping in front of Felix and grinning at the lieutenant. “Lead on!”

Von Vestra smiled, a tight-lipped, uncomfortable expression, and nodded. “Follow me.”

————————————

As soon as they entered, the tension in the conference room hit Felix and Sylvain like a wave of rainforest humidity. Among a smattering of other high-ranking officers, Captains Edelgard and Blaiddyd were seated across from each other, and both looked like telephone wires ready to snap. “Good morning, Captains,” Sylvain greeted them brightly. “Lovely day to discuss murder.”

“Good morning, Sylvain, Felix,” Captain Blaiddyd responded, voice a little strained.

Captain Edelgard’s face was tight. “Sit,” she ordered them.

Felix and Sylvain took seats beside Captain Blaiddyd while Lieutenant von Vestra returned to where he had been sitting beside Captain Edelgard. A leaden dread began to build in Felix’s chest as he noticed glares from multiple officers directed towards him. Something bad had happened, and whatever it was involved him. 

Captain Edelgard rose and stood in front of a pull-down projector screen. After a nod, one of the officers at the back of the table flipped the projector on, handing the remote to the captain. She pointed it at the screen, and a large image of the butchered corpse from the night before appeared on screen. “I trust you are all aware that human remains were discovered last night at 9:12 p.m. by a teenager walking her neighbor’s dogs. Authorities were called and arrived on scene at approximately 9:53. Medical personnel were unable to find a pulse and the victim was declared dead on scene. After some investigation, the remains were identified as belonging to one Mr. Ferdinand von Aegir, a name some of you may recognize.” 

She pushed a button and the screen switched to a picture of Ferdinand’s driver license photo. “The deceased is the son of Ludwig and Almut von Aegir, who own the Royal Imports Corporation--a business worth, as you know, more gold than the entire town of Garreg Mach.” A muttering spread among the officers present. Another button push, and the screen switched back to the grisly crime scene. “The security camera belonging to the nearby ballet studio seems to have conveniently suffered an ill-timed power outage and failed to capture any of the events that resulted in Mr. von Aegir’s death. The deceased’s wallet was empty of cash, but the perpetrator left an expensive watch on his left wrist as well as a class ring valued at nearly three thousand gold. In lieu of valuables, the perpetrator seems to have taken the deceased’s heart after cutting it from his chest.”

The screen switched to a close-up of the chest wound, and several officers averted their eyes. “The deceased’s family has been contacted, but they were unable to suggest any reasons their son would be targeted for such a horrific death. Preliminary medical reports found no drugs or toxins in the deceased’s system. Time of death is estimated between 8:30 and 9:00 P.M. based on body temperature as well as the testimony of the owner of the aforementioned ballet studio, who returned to her studio to collect her forgotten coffee mug at approximately 8:25 P.M. and described seeing an empty beach. Despite an exhaustive search, no murder weapon or tools were found on or around the beach area.” 

She continued to talk and flip through slides, discussing the Royal Imports Corporation’s recent squabble with a Leicester-based trading company as well as threats against the von Aegir family from several estranged business partners. She also mentioned Ferdinand’s personal reputation, which was stellar outside of some small disagreements with people he considered friends. “Detective Fraldarius, I heard you had an experience with the deceased on the day of his murder?”

All eyes swiveled to Felix. He nodded. “It happened at The Merrow cafe at approximately 7:40 a.m.” As he’d done last night, he recounted the event in full. 

Captain Edelgard’s face remained neutral. “Rest assured the implied corruption in the Garreg Mach Police Department is a fiction invented in Mr. von Aegir’s mind. I expect a full report of the incident on my desk by this evening.”

“Is there speculation that Mr. von Aegir’s murder is connected to the missing persons case of Ashe Ubert?” Felix asked, jotting down the report assignment on his notepad.

Captain Edelgard shook her head. “At the present we have no reason to consider them linked. As such, Chief Charon has agreed that the Province will not be involved in our investigation of the von Aegir case at this time.”

Felix jerked a nod. “Understood.”

“I’m glad you mentioned the Ubert case, Detective Fraldarius.” Captain Edelgard continued, her voice taking on a dry, tight tone. “If no one has further discussion on the von Aegir case, I’d like to switch cases. No? Good.” She nodded to the officer on a laptop behind the projector, and the screen went dark. After a moment, it lit back up with an image of a journal.

Felix swallowed hard. It was Ashe’s journal--the one he’d found and failed to report. 

How did they…?

“The GMPD became aware that you had come into possession of a piece of evidence recovered from Ashe Ubert’s apartment, Detective Fraldarius. When I looked into our evidence catalog, however, there was no mention of a sixth notebook. An officer dropped by your room this morning and found this notebook in your nightstand.” Captain Edelgard sat down again beside Lieutenant von Vestra. “I would like an explanation.” 

Each breath Felix took felt strained, and his shirt collar became restricting, cutting into his neck like a noose. The eyes of the GMPD officers were merciless, and Felix’s brain floundered through the justifications he’d given himself for his actions. He’d wanted time to...or maybe he hadn’t trusted the GMPD officers would...no, that would make it worse…

He looked to the side and found Sylvain staring at the table, avoiding eye contact. _Right_ , Felix thought, clenching his fists in his lap. Sylvain had been against his actions from the beginning. Sylvain had been the smart one--a new experience for both of them. “I…” He cleared his throat; it was as dry as if he’d just smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. “I found the notebook after a tip during my investigation. I had intended to catalogue it today.”

“Why did you not immediately catalogue it upon discovery? You even went so far as to remove it from the scene and keep it at your personal residence.”

“I wanted...uninterrupted time to read and memorize the contents before giving it over to be swept for prints. I wore gloves every time I handled it or its contents, and I kept it in an evidence bag when not actively reading it.”

Captain Edelgard’s expression had not softened in the slightest. “Did you or did you not agree that all evidence would be immediately shared between the Garreg Mach Police Department and the Faerghus Provincial Police?”

“I did.”

“Do you believe your personal wants and ideals supersede agreements made between our departments?”

“I do not.”

“Your actions would suggest otherwise. Is there more evidence you have found and not reported?”

“No.”

“How can I believe what you say when you’ve already shown yourself willing to ignore protocol and follow your own prerogative?”

Felix clenched his teeth so hard one of his molars groaned. This pedant...she wasn’t truly questioning his integrity. This was an exercise in humiliation designed to emphasize her authority and put him in his place in front of the other officers. No answer would satisfy her until she felt he had been sufficiently humbled. 

In a way, he agreed with her--and even begrudgingly admired her. She was doing exactly what she should do to keep order and accountability in an investigation she was in charge of. He would probably do the same in her position. Even so, Felix’s pride was robust and it galled him to have it shredded nearly as badly as von Aegir’s chest. He should have listened to Sylvain. “My rec--”

“I gave him permission.” A voice cut across Felix’s half-hearted attempt to salvage his dignity. 

Felix snapped his mouth shut, looking across his partner to stare at Captain Blaiddyd, who’d spoken. 

“I beg your pardon?” Captain Edelgard asked, her face somehow even stormier than before. 

“Detective Fraldarius reported to me upon discovery of the notebook and expressed his concerns that it would be taken for processing before he could properly investigate it. I gave him permission to peruse it for three days before cataloguing it.” Captain Blaiddyd crossed his arms and lowered his chin, daring anyone to disagree.

Captain Edelgard blinked twice before speaking and when she did, her words were minced into furious bites.”May I remind you, _Dimitri_ , that your department is here as a mere accessory to the GMPD’s investigation?”

“When Chief Charon contacted me, she seemed to believe the GMPD’s progress in the investigation had stagnated to the point that intervention was needed.” 

“Fascinating that she left that bit out when she was telling me how she hoped the GMPD’s efficiency and professionalism would rub off on your disorderly, undisciplined department. I believe she called it a ‘zoo’?” 

A muscle twitched in Captain Blaiddyd’s jaw. “And yet my ‘zoo’ has won the Leadership Commendation Award twice as many times as your department. Curious.”

“That is true. I unfortunately lack a father who donated untold amounts of money to the campaign of the one who gives out the awards, unlike you.” 

“Leave my father out of this,” Captain Blaiddyd hissed. “You’re disgracing yourself.”

“Am I?” Captain Edelgard smirked, but her eyes were feral. “You and I will have more words later. As for you,” she turned back to Felix. “Your position is saved but you have lost my trust. My officers have confiscated the journal from your room. You may have access to it again after it has been thoroughly investigated by my department. Did Officer Gautier have knowledge of your discovery?”

“No,” Felix lied quickly, not looking at his partner. “I didn’t tell him because I thought he would report it.”

Edelgard narrowed her eyes. “It seems one of you has some sense, at least. If this sort of behavior repeats itself, not only will I see you off the case, Fraldarius, I will see your licensing questioned. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” Felix replied.

“Is that how they teach Detectives to respond to senior officers in the Provincial Police training?”

“Yes, _ma’am_.”

Satisfied, Captain Edelgard straightened. “One last matter--the press is not to be tolerated snooping for information, and no statements are to be made except in the confines of an official press release. There are a couple of particularly troublesome journalists who smelled blood and have come to feast like vultures on Garreg Mach’s recent tragedies. Avoid them if possible, and let me know if they obstruct your investigations in any way.”

A murmur of assent rose around the table, but Felix stayed silent, stewing. At his side, Sylvain and Captain Blaiddyd were as stiff as pottery.

Standing, Captain Edelgard clicked off the projector with her remote. “Meeting adjourned.”

————————————

Sylvain leaned his back on the wall beside Felix, kicking his heel against the bricks and staring up at the clouds backlit by the summer sun. He opened his mouth twice, but shut it again without speaking each time. Felix had chain-smoked two cigarettes before his partner finally broke the silence. “Thanks.” 

Felix grunted, lighting a third. “You were right.” 

“I know you don’t like lying.”

Felix said nothing. He’d lied so often lately he was becoming numb to his own cognitive dissonance. 

“Hey, at least Captain D is getting chewed out instead of you right now,” Sylvain said. “I would _not_ want to be in Captain Edelgard’s doghouse. She’s terrifying.”

“She’s just doing what she has to.”

“I feel like dressing you down in front of everyone was a little far, though. She could have done it privately.” Sylvain thumped his foot a few more times. “Is it just me or are Captains B and E _totally_ going to hate-bang later? They _say_ they can’t stand each other, but we all know hate is one step--”

“Shut up, Sylvain,” Felix sighed. A moment later his pocket buzzed, and he pulled out his phone to see an unknown number on the caller ID. “Detective Fraldarius,” he answered, hoping it wasn’t Captain Edelgard overhearing Sylvain’s idiotic gibberish and summoning him back into the station.

“Detective! Uh...I mean...Felix? Hi!”

“Annette?” Felix asked, surprised. 

“Yes! It’s me!” She said, sounding pleased he’d recognized her. “I know you’re probably busy doing police stuff and I’m sorry to bother you like this, but I found some of those comment cards I mentioned yesterday.”

Felix’s grip on the phone tightened. “I’ll be there in seven minutes.”

“You mean The Merrow, right?”

“Is that where you are?”

“Uh...yeah, that works! I’ll see you soon.”

“Annette? Dominic-without-a-k-at-the-end?” Sylvain asked as soon as Felix had hung up. “That Annette?”

Pocketing his phone, Felix took another drag of his cigarette. “The one and only. I have to pick something up from The Merrow. You coming?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Sylvain pushed away from the wall. “I’m not going to risk being Captain Edelgard’s next interview.”

Felix nodded, head still buzzing with thoughts. As he put his cigarette up to his lips again, it disappeared. “The hell?” He growled. 

Sylvain, who had flicked it out of his fingers, gave him a toothy grin. “Gotta break that habit, my friend.”

Felix’s hands were itching to break _something_. He took a long, deep breath, and then counted to four. This day felt like it had already lasted a week. “Get to the car before you end up a corpse on the beach next.”

————————————

The waitresses at The Merrow didn’t bother calling out a welcome to the officers this time, and the air was tense as soon as they entered. Bernadetta turned to make a run for the bathroom, but Ingrid reached out and caught her purple t-shirt collar before she could build up speed. In the middle of the cafe, Claude was on a ladder messing with some wires in a ceiling light, with Hilda holding the base of the ladder and offering unhelpful suggestions. The two turned to see the officers and Claude’s face, unlike Hilda’s, brightened. “The men of the hour! Here to protect us from the heart-eating mermaids?”

Sylvain laughed in response, but Felix watched the reactions of the other staff members out of the corner of his eyes. Ingrid’s arm twitched, jolting the collar of Bernadetta, who squeaked in terror. Hilda frowned, putting her hands on her hips. “How long do you expect me to hold this for you? Fix the light and come down before I start getting sweaty.”

“Fe--Detective! Over here!” Annette’s voice came from a table at the back of the dining room. She stood partially, leaning over the table with one hand and waving with the other. 

Felix jerked his head at his partner and walked over to her table, seating himself across from her. “Morning.”

“Always a pleasure to see you, Ms. Dominic,” Sylvain said, sitting next to Felix. He smiled at her with his smoothest expression, and Felix kicked him under the table.

“You found the comment cards?”

Annette nodded, pushing across the table four cards she’d stacked in front of her. “Here they are; you can see he signed them and everything. Could you show me the letter again? I want to see if I was right.”

Felix cleared his throat, cooled irritation returning to a simmer in his mind. “I don’t have it anymore.”

“Huh?” Annette asked, surprised. “Where’d it go?”

“...It was--it doesn’t matter. I don’t have it.” Catching himself before he gave away information, Felix grabbed the comment cards as a distraction. “I remember what the writing looked like.” He squinted at the writing on the cards, passing them off to Sylvain one by one. “I need to get these to the handwriting analyst.”

Annette watched them examine the cards, eyes wide. “You still have the diary, right? Could there be another letter or something else to use?”

“The diary isn’t in my possession, either.” 

His answer was short and clipped, indicating his unwillingness to discuss the matter further, but Annette spoke again, though hesitantly. “Did you at least get to read the whole thing?”

Felix looked up sharply. Her fist, which had been clenched at her chest, relaxed and dropped into her lab. He handed the last card to Sylvain and crossed his arms, leaning back in his seat. “Not entirely.” He studied her face as he spoke. “I did find one thing, though, that I’d like to ask you about.”

The cafe was silent save for Claude swearing at the light fixture from atop the ladder. Annette tilted her head. “Me? What is it? I-is it that silly thing I wrote on the sticky note that one time? Did he keep it? That was a joke--I swear!”

“What? No. I’m wondering if you happen to know someone named Petra Macneary.”

Something dropped at the prep station, falling to the floor with an almighty clang and causing Annette to jolt in her seat. “Bah!” She shrieked, putting a hand over her heart. “Bernadetta!”

“Sorry…!” Bernadetta apologized, her voice barely audible as she was crouched behind the counter, picking up wayward blueberries. “Th-the bowl was slippery! I’m really sorry! Stupid Bernie!”

“It’s fine…” Annette took a few deep breaths. “Sorry, Detective...what did you say?”

Felix kicked Sylvain under the table again, gently this time, as if to say _pay attention_. “Petra Macneary. Does that name ring any bells to you?”

Annette blinked once, then twice, her face blank. “Macneary…” She brought her hand to her chin, closing her eyes in concentration. “Macneary…I don’t...I don’t recall that name.”

“Fascinating,” Felix replied, his voice low. “Ashe wrote that she was employed here not long ago.”

Annette’s mouth fell open, but another voice interrupted. “Of course we know her. What are you saying?” Felix and Sylvain turned to see Ingrid standing beside their table, shaking her head. “You really are an airhead, Annette.” 

“Pet...PETRA!” Annette squeaked. “Right! No, of course I know that Petra! I love Petra!” She put her hands together in apology. “Sorry, Detective! I don’t think I’d ever heard _our_ Petra’s last name before. I know, like, five Petras, so I didn’t immediately think of her!”

Felix narrowed his eyes. Her tone, her face... 

He wanted to believe her.

“She doesn’t work here anymore, obviously,” Ingrid said. 

“Why not?” Sylvain asked when Felix didn’t respond. 

“She had to go back to Brigid--that’s where she’s from--suddenly. Family emergency or something.” Ingrid shrugged. 

Annette nodded. “I don’t know anything about her family, but she mentioned her grandfather wasn’t in the best of health. I hope he’s okay...”

“What color was her hair?”

“Sort of a plum with kind of a tint of...wait! That hair lock you showed me!” Annette pointed at Felix. “It was that color! That could have been hers! Goddess, I’m such a ditz...”

“Ashe kept a lock of her hair in his diary?” Hilda had abandoned Claude’s ladder to come stand beside Ingrid. “Wow! I knew it!”

Felix turned to the newcomer. “Knew what?”

“Knew he had a big fat crush on her. You told me I was just--what did you say?” Hilda glared at Ingrid. “‘Making up drama because I was lonely’. That’s what you said! I told you my Hil-dar is never wrong about these sorts of things. You owe me a soda!”

Ingrid put her head in her hand as if she were already tired of the way Hilda was going to lord this over her. “Yes, yes, you were right. Get my purse and take a dollar out of it.”

“Do you know her contact information? We’d love to get a statement from her,” Sylvain said, taking out his notepad. 

Annette shook her head. “She didn’t leave her information with any of us. You’ll have to ask Manuela.”

“I’ll do that,” Felix said, scooting his chair back and standing up. The staff was taking the mention of Petra’s name much better than he’d expected, and it had thrown his theories into disarray. Sylvain followed suit, gathering up the comment cards and stowing them in a pocket. “We need to get back to the station.” 

Hilda grabbed his arm before he could leave. “Say, Detective. This is just a thought, but...don’t you think Ashe could have followed Petra to Brigid if he liked her that much? What if he didn’t really _disappear_ per se and just...ran off after her?”

“Or what if...” Annette said, taking Hilda’s hand off of Felix’s arm and holding it in her own hands. “What if they eloped?”

Hilda gasped. “So romantic! I could see it!”

“I think you’re both getting carried away here,” Ingrid said drily, steering Hilda towards the counter. “Back to work.”

As Hilda protested, the door to the kitchen opened and Lysithea came out, holding a load of clean silverware in one arm and looking none too pleased to see the officers. “I thought you two might be here, judging by all the noise. If you’re looking for Dorothea to talk to her about Ferdinand von Aegir, she’s not in today. She doesn’t work again until Wednesday,” She said, laying the utensils on one of the prep benches. “She’s pretty upset over this whole situation, so I’d thank you to give her at least a day before you start to harass her.” 

“I understand,” Felix replied. Miss von Cordelia was as sharp as ever; questioning Dorothea and all the staff that was working yesterday was on his to-do list, right after getting to the bottom of the business with Lorenz Gloucester. Hilda, Annette, and Claude had solid alibis--he had seen them himself at the same time the murder was theoretically occurring--but the others would need to give an accounting of where they were during that time window.

Then again, Captain Edelgard had made it clear he wasn’t welcome in the von Aegir case, and he had no reason to question them again about Ashe Ubert. Asking for alibis about a case he wasn’t working would be outside of Felix’s jurisdiction.

But _they_ didn’t know that, did they? 

“We’ll be back,” Felix said. “Thanks for the help.”

Once they were back in the car, Sylvain whistled low. “I feel like we just got handed a bag of puzzle pieces but they’re all from different puzzles and none of them fit together.” 

Felix grunted in response, staring out the windshield. 

“What do you think about that theory Goneril had? It’s plausible, isn’t it?”

“Elopement?” Felix shook his head slowly. “It’s possible, but it’s...too convenient. They know we can’t investigate in Brigid without permission from Brigid’s Parliament and royal family. They just offered us a dead end.”

Sylvain snorted. “Who said the truth couldn’t be convenient? Occam’s razor, right?”

“And what of the items Ubert left behind? Why would he stop contacting his family? Where does Gloucester’s threat fit in? Why was von Aegir murdered? It doesn’t fit.”

“First off, the von Aegir case doesn’t have to fit in. There’s no reason to assume it’s connected,” Sylvain reminded him. “Just because The Merrow staff knew both Ubert and von Aegir doesn’t make them connected. The Merrow staff seems to know most people in town because they’re a popular lunch joint. Furthermore, maybe there’s some family drama we don’t know about. Maybe Ubert has a reason for ghosting his family.”

Felix shook his head again, harder. “I don’t buy it.” He started the car, throwing it into reverse and turning the air conditioning on high. “Let’s turn in those comment cards. If they match, I think it’s time for another conversation with Mr. Gloucester.”

————————————

Felix had just swallowed the first bite of his instant noodles when Sylvain burst into their shared office, waving papers. “It’s a match!”

“The handwriting?” Felix stood, ignoring the puddle of noodle soup he’d sloshed all over the cubicle desk in surprise. “Give it here.”

Sylvain handed him the papers proudly. “Right there. One hundred percent match. He didn’t even try to disguise his handwriting.”

“Arrogant son of a bitch,” Felix muttered, smirking as he read. “He thought we'd never find out, or that it wouldn't matter if we did.” 

“Shall I bring him in?”

Felix checked his phone to look at the time, also noticing an unread text message notification. “It’s already after five o’clock. Let’s go get him first thing tomorrow morning. I want copies of that note printed out before we leave the station tonight. You ask for it, though, because they’ll give me trouble if I ask.” 

“You got it.”

After Sylvain left, Felix sat down in his seat again and clicked on the message notification. 

[Dominic-no-k]: hi! it’s me again

[Dominic-no-k]: oh I mean it’s Annette

[Dominic-no-k]: you probably don’t have my number saved so that was dumb

[Dominic-no-k]: would you be down for another tour tonight?

Felix smiled at the phone. 

[Me]: What time? 

After a minute or two, a reply message popped up. 

[Dominic-no-k]: whenever you get off work!

[Dominic-no-k]: as long as it’s not too late lol 

[Me]: I’m off now. Is that fine?

[Dominic-no-k]: sure! have you eaten?

[Me]: I was about to.

[Dominic-no-k]: great! eat fast and meet me at the laundromat behind the post office.

[Dominic-no-k]: wear shoes you can walk in!!

[Me]: I’m bringing my weapon belt.

[Dominic-no-k]: ok lol!

Felix clicked off his phone screen and grabbed his chopsticks. How fast could he eat a bowl of soup?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What were Dimitri and Edelgard REALLY doing in her office?  
> Did anyone else get just a little turned on when Edelgard was asserting her dominance? Just me?  
> Whoops.
> 
> LunaClefairy: imagine hating sweets as much as Felix does. What would Annette get him for Valentine's day? A turkey leg?
> 
> Ren_Maisley: you're banned from puns!!! xD
> 
> Curlsandcollege: it means that Ferdie can't harass Dorothea anymore is what it means. Now who would want to keep Dorothea from being harassed? And who benefits from obtaining a human heart? If mermaids benefit from eating hearts, why would they want to protect a human? If mermaids are interested in protecting humans, why murder one? And if mermaids are just mythology, whose hand held the knife?
> 
> Daydreaming_Chimera: Fear ye not, lover of Ferdinand von Aegir! I actually really like Ferdie :) But someone has to be a villain in a story and...well...Ferdie drew the short straw!
> 
> AniM8dManga13: YES, IT MAKES SENSE AND I LIKE THE WAY YOU THINK. Imagine the nicer someone is the tastier their heart is...THEN IMAGINE HOW TASTY ASHE'S HEART MUST BE BECAUSE HE IS A BABEY CINNAMON ROLL??????
> 
> Saus: Claude best merman tbh and Annette is already so uwu I don't have to work hard to make her lovable. I mean, heck, she can even charm someone as lame as Felix like imagine. His first crush was a sword. "Ah yes. Me, my boyfriend, and my boyfriend's bloody war weapons."
> 
> Enilda_1201: She's just doing her best!! You've really hit on some good points in that comment and I feel really honored to have such eagle-eyed readers. I can't even talk about it without spoiling. I gotta up my subtlety game to beat you!
> 
> machiroads: "Lmao RIP Ferdie" that is more savage then Sylvain could ever dream of being xD What design would be on your decorative manhole? Mine would have pillows because sleep is the best x_x
> 
> halcyon_autumn: Can you imagine Dorothea scraping into Ferdie's chest with her bare nails and pulling out his heart? ...can you imagine Annie doing it? And just for clarity, the blocked calls were Hubert trying to contact him about finding the body. Nothing more sinister lol Hubert's sinister enough. I really like that your brain automatically asked why there has to be only ONE murderer and why it couldn't be a group effort. Because it could, of course. You're bae.
> 
> From here on out I'll be replying to your comments IN the comments so you don't have to see a giant scrawl of word vomit in the end note xD Thank you so much for reading and even more for interacting with me! Stories are so much more fun when shared with friends!


	8. The Myth

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Myth

The sweltering air, beginning to cool for the evening, smelled strongly of laundry detergent and hot metal. The sun wouldn’t set for another good two hours, and heat haze rose from the asphalt like spirits. The laundromat at which Annette had asked to meet seemed to be popular; he’d had trouble finding a spot to park in the rear lot.  _ She’s probably near the front entrance, _ Felix thought, one hand in his pocket.

He’d gotten halfway along the side of the building when  _ it _ happened again.

The breeze blew, carrying with it the salty smell of the ocean and a sound--a humming, or a chant maybe. This time his mind didn’t blank away into nothingness, but rather felt melted, like the ends of his reasoning were frayed and beginning to droop. His feet slowed, then stopped, and the voice filled his senses, threatening to overtake him and plunge him into insensibility the way glaciers plunge into arctic water.  _ No _ , Felix thought, shaking his head like a dog shaking off water.  _ Not again! _ _Breathe._

As much as something deep inside told him to  _ run _ , something else equally deep commanded him to stay, to listen...to unfold. 

_ Open _ , the music bid him.  _ Obey.  _

The humming was like the sea heard through a conch shell, or waves become voice--something old and powerful, terrible and beautiful all at once. 

And familiar…? He’d heard this before, and not just the other day on the way to Bottle Beach. He’d heard it...in a dream or when half asleep. Or maybe he’d always known this tune and had simply misplaced it for a while, like a favorite mug forgotten in the back of the cabinet. It sucked at his edges, pulling him down, down, down.

“No!” He grunted aloud, putting a hand to his head. “Stop!”

It stopped, cut off mid-note. 

Felix blinked, lowering his hand and looking around warily. The sun was still shining, the air still smelled of soap, and his feet were light once more. From inside the laundromat he could just barely hear chatter, the whir of laundry machines, and a popular song playing on the overhead radio. He flipped around, searching the parking lot from which he’d just come and finding it as empty of life as it had been three minutes earlier. “What the hell?” He said loudly, hoping to draw out whoever had been making the sound.

A few heads popped around the corner of the building, concerned expressions on their faces. Among them was Annette, who trotted toward him as soon as she recognized him. “Detective! What are you doing?”

He reached out, grasping her shoulders. “Did you hear something just now?”

“Yeah, I heard you swearing.”

“Not that,” he said. “Did you hear something else?”

“Like what?”

“Like…” How could he make this sound not ridiculous? “Like a voice...from the ocean.”

Annette stared at him. “A voice from the...ocean? Talking?”

“No. Singing.”

“Like the music coming from inside the laundromat?”

He tensed, shaking her a little without meaning to. “No! Not like that at all. Like it was…” He then realized what he was doing and released her, stepping back with his hands up. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to manhandle you. Forgive me.”

“I-I’m fine,” Annette said, acknowledging his apology. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“No, it’s not fine. I know better, I just...maybe this place is getting to me.”

Annette watched him mumble to himself, an odd expression crossing her face. “How did it make you feel? The song, I mean.”

Felix hesitated. “Don’t laugh if I tell you.”

“I won’t.”

“It was...like it was...ugh.” He crossed his arms, uncomfortable. “Why am I saying this…? It was like it was...calling me.” After a moment he glanced at Annette, expecting to see her holding in giggles. 

Her face, however, was as serious as his own. “Calling  _ you _ ? Or calling anyone who could hear?”

“As if I would know the difference,” He said, peeved at the situation and at himself most of all. “Don’t make a face like that. You look like you’re about to call mental health services. I’m talking nonsense. I’m from Faerghus; it’s too hot here for me.”

Annette didn’t reply right away. She walked to the other corner of the building and peered behind it, then squinted to see through the shrubbery and into the back lot of the post office. After she’d satisfied herself, she came back to Felix and put a hand on his arm. “Are you still okay to tour or should we postpone?”

“No. I’m fine.” Felix took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. Maybe a tour would knock the cobwebs out of his brains. “Where to?” 

She still looked skeptical, but put it aside as she spoke. “If you’re feeling up to it, I thought we could go for a little hike. There’s a trail head near here that takes you to a nice spot overlooking the harbor. What do you think?”

Physical exercise. Even better to clear his mind. “Fine by me.” 

“Great!” She patted the straps of the small backpack she was wearing. “I got some water bottles out of the drink machine in the laundromat, so we should be all set. Follow me!”

Felix followed her as bidden, but when she turned her back he put a hand to his head again. The song from earlier was still knocking around the corners of his brain; a faint echo that refused to fade.

———————————— 

“Anyway, Almyra sent a hundred tons of wyvern-eye quartz as a symbol of peace, and that’s why the town square has those elaborate flagstones that form the symbol of Seiros. You can see they’re starting to wear down from people walking on them all the time, and the council still has a whole store room of quartz left, so they’re planning to... _ huff _ ...renovate them in the next five years or so.” Annette’s voice was becoming strained as she walked. “Supposedly even the Almyran royal family might come to commemorate the armistice, which would be... _ huff _ ...pretty cool.” She stopped, leaning over to rest her hands on her knees. “Give me a minute.”

Felix, who had taken the backpack from her a mile back, pulled out her water bottle and offered it to her. “What sort of tour guide can’t hike her own tour without nearly keeling over every eight hundred meters?”

Annette snapped her head up to glare at him, snatching the water from his hand. “I can do this just fine! You try hiking while simultaneously telling the history of the Almyran-Fodlan conflict! I’m working my brain AND my muscles!” She drank deeply, gasping at the end. “I’m doing this for you, so be a little more grateful!”

“I’m paying you, aren’t I? Don’t act like this is out of the kindness of your heart,” Felix argued back.

Annette narrowed her eyes, thrusting the water back at him. “Fine. We’ll go back.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.”

“So you’re saying you want to go on? Sounded like you weren’t enjoying yourself.”

“I’m having the time of my life,” Felix replied, his voice as flat as cardboard.

“...now we’re definitely going back.”

Felix caught her sleeve as she marched past him. “Come on, you said we’re nearly there.”

She turned back, lips pursed. “Can I rest as often as I need?”

“Fine. I won’t complain any more.”

“Well. Alright then.” She tipped her nose up, walking past him to continue on the trail. “It’s not my fault I have noodle legs!”

“How is that not your fault? Exercise them more!”

“I’m trying! How about you encourage me instead of critique?”

Felix snorted. “Encouraging you would only make space for more excuses.”

“Excuse me?” She shrilled. “You better watch yourself or I’ll put chili powder in your next coffee.”

“...that sounds delicious, actually.”

“Arsenic, then.”

“You realize I’m still a police officer, right?”

“I was kidding! Ugh...shut up, Annie!” 

Felix smiled at her back. This was...fun. 

———————————— 

The banter ended when they emerged from the wooded trail onto the top of a large rock outcropping that jutted out over the ocean. A strong wind blew and Felix braced his feet, leaning into it and the strong smell of brine it brought. Annette was panting again, but she gestured him towards the edge. “This way! There’s a great spot to sit right over here.”

He followed her over a rock ridge and was surprised to see a little natural shelf near the tip of the cliff--close enough that their toes could dangle off the edge but far enough back to be safe. “Are you sure it holds enough weight?”

The look she gave him suggested that he was an idiot. “Of course it holds weight. During the Firefly Festival fireworks there’s always, like, a hundred people up here.” She sat down and patted the rock beside her. “Sit!”

Felix wished he hadn’t worn his weapons; they made it difficult to find a comfortable position in which to sit. He settled for sitting criss-cross, which was fine by him as the thought of dangling any part of his body off the edge made him lightheaded. Once he’d arranged himself, he looked--really looked--out into the ocean for the first time. The shimmering of the waves in the dwindling light was hypnotic, and he felt the same way he felt when he looked at the stars--like he suddenly remembered that the world was big and he was so, so small.

“You like it?” Annette asked, grinning at the way he’d lapsed into silence. “Worth the climb, right? Just wait until the sun starts to set. That’s when this entire sky looks like it’s on fire.” 

They enjoyed the lull of the ocean for a few minutes, then Felix sighed, breaking the comfortable silence. “What’s wrong?” Annette asked.

Felix ran his tongue along the backs of his teeth, wondering how much he could say. It occurred to him that he could use this to start a conversation and get information out of her, which was the entire reason he was here in the first place. “Don’t you feel small when you look at the ocean like this?”

Annette turned her head back to the ocean, pondering. “Yeah. I do.”

“It makes me wonder...how am I going to find Ashe Ubert out there in this enormous world? It’s my job. My purpose. But nothing makes sense.”

Annette scratched at the rock surface, loosening a tuft of moss. “What’ll you do if you don’t find him?”

“I…” Felix stopped, clenching his fists. “That’s not an option.” 

Annette didn’t reply, but stared out as if she were helping him look for Ashe among the waves. The wind blew again, bobbling the rings in her hair. “I wish I could help,” she finally said.

Her glum expression made Felix wish he hadn’t mentioned Ubert at all, but he pressed forward. “Actually, there’s something you can do for me.” When she looked at him, confused, he looked away. “Remember when I stopped you from telling me about Garreg Mach’s mermaid myths? Could you tell me now?”

“Now? Like, right now?”

“We still have a few minutes until the sun starts to set.”

“Right. Uh…” Annette also crossed her legs, turning a bit towards her lone audience member. “Actually, oral storytelling is my worst one. My shadow puppets are better…”

“I thought singing was your worst.” 

“That--don’t even start!” She took a deep breath, and when her eyes opened, she was someone else. “Long ago, when Sothis and her children still walked among us, a fishing village off the coast of Adrestia secretly gathered a small force against the Goddess herself. It wasn’t fair, they felt, that humans were subservient to the Nabateans, the Children of the Goddess, simply because they had been born mortal. Why should the circumstances of one’s birth determine who ruled and who served? 

Fighting against the Nabateans was an impossibility, for they were numerous and possessed divine strength. To engage in frank combat would be suicide, and the village was too clever for that. Instead, they watched Sothis, year after year, and found that she had become indolent after many centuries as Goddess.

None had dared challenge her in all her years in Fodlan, so little by little she dropped her guard. Under the bright stars she would openly walk and sup among the people, without even an escort to guard her. Her arrogance would be her undoing, the village agreed, and so they gathered a small force, training them in the arts of disguise, silence, and the swift dealing of death. 

Decades passed, yet they bided their time. The trained assassins became old and passed on their knowledge to new generations, who further honed the skills they’d learned. The village hid their existence as carefully as peerless treasure, for they knew that if they were to be discovered, the village and its people would all surely meet their ends.

One day it was announced that the Goddess would tour the coastlines, collecting taxes as she went. When she came to the fishing village, the assassins laid a trap in the form of a magnificent feast. They brought her the best of the season’s catch, and the finest fruits of the field...but they drugged her wine with a powerful sedative and poison. No poison could kill the Goddess, of course, but if it slowed her for even one second, it would fulfill its purpose!

She ate and drank and danced the night away, but when her feet began to stumble with weariness, the village attacked. The twelve best assassins fell upon her at once, each using a different weapon and a different tactic to pierce her holy heart and end her reign.”

Annette closed her eyes in sorrow. “They were fools. Fools to think the machinations of humankind could conquer the Progenitor God herself. She slaughtered her attackers with ease, staining the banquet tables green with bile and rending bone from flesh. Then she turned her rage on the unarmed villagers. 

When she’d sated her fury and soaked herself in blood, her children rounded up the few survivors and made them kneel at her feet. There, Sothis cursed them. ‘Cursed are you, and forever shall you be cursed!’” Annette’s voice rose, and goosebumps textured Felix’s skin. “She cast them into the ocean, and when they hit the water, their legs fused into the tails of fish, and gills tore out of their necks. They had wished to end the immortals, so Sothis cursed them with immortality themselves--but only through bloodshed. The new merpeople could live forever...by eating the heart of a human while the blood was still warm.

As her final act of rage, she instilled in them a hunger...a gnawing, biting hunger for flesh. One by one they succumbed, and tales rose across the years...whispers that monsters lurked in the waters. Monsters that drank blood, and would steal the beating hearts of the unwary. Yet in their sorrow they sing, and as they sing...they make humans their slaves the way they refused to be enslaved to the Nabateans.” Annette dropped her voice to an eerie whisper. “Garreg Mach has the highest number of mermaid attacks of any town or city across Fodlan...dozens of victims missing their hearts. Check the records. That’s why the Council banned drinking on the beach at night. It’s better to have your wits about you when you’re near the water after dark...after all, legend says that if you hear them sing, you’ve been marked as a victim. Their songs will slowly wear away your mind until you can not resist--until you are completely enthralled. 

Then...late at night...you’ll dream of the ocean. A dream of waves and sand...but you’ll awaken to find yourself wading into the water. Cold, wet hands will emerge, taking hold of your ankles and wrists and….THEN THEY GET YOU!” Annette screamed the last part at Felix, holding her hands up like monster claws.

Felix yelped, jerking backwards and smacking his head sharply on the rock shelf. Annette broke into raucous laughter, bending over and holding her stomach as she hooted. “Are...are you okay?” She asked in between peals of laughter. 

Felix rubbed his sore head, checking his fingers for blood and finding none. Watching Annette lose herself laughing at him hurt more than headbutting the rock had, and that was no small statement. He opened his mouth to chide her, but she broke into fresh giggles and he shut it again with a snap. “Are you done?” He finally asked when her mirth had petered to a trickle.

“Ah...I’m sorry…” She swiped at her eyes. “No, no, honestly...I didn’t think you’d jump like that, I...usually it’s the kids that…” The giggles returned and she puffed her cheeks out in an effort to keep them in. “I’m not laughing at  _ you _ , really, I’m...oh, no, I  _ am _ laughing at you, I can’t lie.”

Again lost for words, Felix stewed silently. After a moment he felt a small warmth on his head and looked up to see that Annette had reached out to touch the place where he’d wounded himself, an apologetic look on her face. She’d stopped laughing and now looked penitent, which was possibly worse. “Don’t make that face,” he said gruffly, shooing her hand away. “It was a good story. I was...very into it. Obviously.”

“You don’t like scary things either, do you?” She asked. “Just like me.”

“Nonsense. I was startled, not scared.”

A mischievous smile bloomed on her face. “So what does scare you? Death?”

“Excuse me?” Felix scowled at her. “Would I be in this line of work if I feared death?”

“Public speaking, then.”

“No.”

“Spiders.”

“That’s idiotic.”

“Heights?”

He gave her a withering look. “Is that the best you can do?”

“Not scared of heights at all? What if I pushed you off this cliff right now?”

“You must be joking.”

Her expression had lapsed into blankness. “What if I was dangerous? I could have anything in my bag and you wouldn’t know it. We’re up here all alone. No one could hear you and you barely know anything about me. Doesn’t that scare you?”

Felix’s first instinct was to scoff. Annette was a small woman, no matter how large her apparent confidence. She posed no threat to him, and very little threat to anything larger than a cave cricket. 

His second instinct, upon realizing how serious her face had remained, was to scoff even louder. “Please allow me to deconstruct your delusions,” he said, simmering down to a smirk. “First of all, I frisked your bag when I took it from you the first time you stopped to rest on the way up here. If you had brought a weapon, you would have become closely acquainted with my handcuffs. Second, in no world would I or could I possibly fear you, who is roughly as frightening as an unripe avocado.”

Annette gaped in outrage. “Avocado?”

“In truth,” Felix continued over her. “The only thing that inspires the slightest amount of fear in me as regards you is your absolute unsubstantiated bravery in a situation like this.”

“A situation like this? What is that supposed to mean?”

“What is that supp--” Felix put a hand to his head. This woman was almost certainly not dangerous, but she  _ was  _ almost certainly a fool, which was its own type of danger. “I am a man at least six inches taller than you.”

“And…?”

“Didn’t you just say no one could hear us up here? I’m even wearing a weapons belt! For the love of Seiros, I’m not alone with  _ you _ ,  _ you’re _ alone with  _ me _ . How are you not the one who is scared?”

Annette stared at him for a moment, his words rankling in her head. Felix watched her face, expecting to see shadows of fear emerge as she realized the position she’d put herself in, but none came. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said solidly. “You have no reason to hurt me.”

“People do horrible things every day for no reason. Believe me, I’ve seen it.”

“But not you. You’re a good person on the inside.”

“You know nothing about me except what I’ve shown you, and that could all be lies.” As a matter of fact, most of it  _ was _ lies. Even now he was using her for information because she was weak minded.

She pressed her lips together. “Maybe. But I don’t think so. Besides, Mercy said you have a good heart. She has...intuition about that sort of thing.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Felix said flatly.  _ Sothis’ sandals _ , he thought, watching her open her mouth to argue with him again.  _ She really is an idiot. _ Her lack of a sense of self-preservation irked him far more than it ought. “We’re leaving.”

Her face was mutinous, but she bit back what she’d been about to say. “...at least look at the sunset. It’s why I brought you here in the first place. You can’t write about it in your stupid article if you didn’t see it.” 

“...fine.” Felix turned to look at the horizon, though he’d just found out that she had a faint dimple on one side of her face when she pouted, and he was very curious as to whether the other side matched. His breath caught, however, when he raised his eyes to see a brilliant vermilion sky before him. The place where the sky touched the ocean was like the heart of a fire that faded as it spread, blending into dusky violet at its edges. Waves and swells in the water captured cast-off light, turning into molten gold and then scattering that light into twinkles that blazed and died all in an instant.

The spectacle enraptured him to the point that he didn’t notice Annette was staring at him until she made a small noise of satisfaction. “Well, what do you say? Worth the hike, right?”

He nodded once. “Yeah. This view is...incredible.”

“I thought so, too.” She turned back to the sunset, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Pictures don’t do it justice.”

Once the shadows had begun to darken around them, Felix stood, stretching out the soreness from sitting on rock. “We’d better go. It’s already going to be dark by the time we take the hike back down.”

“Oh! Right!” Annette also stood, looking up at the rising moon. “I brought a flashlight, just in case.”

“I have one in my belt as well.” Felix shouldered the bag, making for the tree line. “Watch your step.” When she didn’t reply, he started to wonder if she was still angry about the avocado remark from earlier. “Hey, you,” he said, turning back to look at her.

“What?”

“You did a good job with this one. I liked it.”

She’d been focused on carefully picking across the rocks, but his words jerked her head up in surprise. “Hah? Whoa…!” She’d misstepped in her shock, and she pitched to the side, dangerously close to the overlook’s edge.

“Hey…!” Felix jerked forward, dropping the bag and reaching for her sleeve. His fingers just missed the hem of the fabric, but he grabbed her arm instead, yanking her away from the edge. She yelped and the two tumbled into a heap, which Felix stopped from slipping further by wedging his foot against a nearby sapling. “Didn’t I just get finished telling you to watch your step?” He growled when he’d caught his breath. 

Annette apologized in between gasping breaths. She’d landed mostly on top of him, and he’d wrapped an arm around her torso, using his body as a barrier between her and the rock face.“I’m sorry...I’m sorry…! I...bah!” She realized their position and tried to push away from his chest with both hands, forcing air out of his lungs in a grunt. 

“Stop squirming,” Felix instructed, looking over his shoulder to gauge their distance from danger. “Crawl to your left and use my shoulders to get back up on the plateau. I can’t catch you if you slip from here.”

“I’m really, really sorry…” Annette shifted her weight, biting her lip in concentration. “L-let go of my waist!”

“I’ll let go when you have a grip on the rock. Can’t you go any faster?”

Annette’s face was already red from the fall, but it was getting redder by the moment. “I’m trying not to knee you in delicate places! Look, I’m gonna move this way--”

“Grab that shelf right there. No, to the left.”

“That’s going to be too slippery; there’s no place to hook my fingers--”

“Just try!”

She reached out and grasped it, but the evening mist had risen and her hands were sweaty, so she slipped back down, bringing her nose to nose with Felix. “See?” She said, her voice shrill and her eyes searching for a place to look that wasn’t his face. “Augh, this is the worst!”

Felix could feel his own thoughts starting to fly apart, partly out of adrenaline from the danger and partly because this was a situation in which he’d never found himself. Just like with Bernadetta’s bathroom stand off before, there were no sections in the academy manual about what to do when a woman was astride you, smelling like citrus and breathing heavily on your neck. Her heart beat furiously through their shirts, pounding against his chest. “T-try again! Use my shoulders as leverage like I said the first time!”

“Okay...uh, here I go again!” She pushed forward, dragging the fabric of her t-shirt over his face. “Got it! Alright, hold on…”

Felix turned his face to the side to avoid the pressure as she pushed herself up.  _ Lemons _ , he thought as she passed, gritting his teeth and trying to distract himself from the fact that her knee was digging into his ribs, threatening to snap them. This was an old trick his father had taught him to deal with pain--focus on your other senses.  _ Her shirt smells like lemons. _ Beneath the bright citrus there was a distinct note of salt, like the wind off the sea. Refreshing.

The pressure on his ribs released as she pulled herself onto the plateau, and he dragged in a painful breath, his ribs aching as they expanded. “I’m up!” Annette rolled over above him, reaching toward him. “Take my hand!”

“I don’t need your hand,” he informed her, using the sapling at his foot to right himself and reach for a divot in the rock. With a grunt, he pulled, making it up onto the flat area with relative ease. “You’re lucky I have quick reflexes,” he said, inspecting himself for cuts.

“I’m so,  _ so _ sorry...you surprised me and...oh, your arm is bleeding a little! Right there…” She pointed to a gouge in his forearm that was leaking a small stream of blood.

Felix inspected it, then reached for Annette, grabbing her wrist. “What the...why are your fingernails like razors?” He held her hand up. Just like Dorothea, her nails had been filed into little points which were responsible for the damage on his arm. “Is this some ridiculous fashion you and your coworkers have concocted?”

Annette snatched her hand back, hiding the nails. “It’s...ugh...it’s for self-defense, okay? You saw the way Ferdinand talked to Dorothea, and there’s been others, too. Isn’t it natural we’d take precautions?”

Felix shook his head, pushing himself to his feet. Nothing else on his body seemed to be wounded, and a quick scan of Annette showed nothing obviously injured on her, either. The sun was now setting in earnest, and his sweat was giving him a chill. “Get up and let’s go. You can use the flashlight you brought to keep you from falling again.”

Annette nodded, but when she tried to stand she hissed, sitting back on the ground, hard. “I...I think I twisted my ankle when I slipped. Um...give me a minute.” She took a deep breath and bit her cheek as she stood, wincing when she stepped forward. “I’m fine!” She snapped when Felix stepped toward her. 

“Don’t be a fool. If it’s not seriously hurt now it will be by the time we hike the mile and a half back to town.”

“Well, there’s not like there’s any other option!” She smiled bravely, hiding another wince. “Come on, we’ll just take it slow.”

Felix sighed, then turned away from her and squatted down. “Get on.”

“What? No way!”

“Just get on! If we take care of it now, we can avoid it turning into something bad. Can you afford a hospital visit when you tear something from limping over a tree root?”

“No, I...ugh!” She whined softly, torn. 

“Fine. I’ll leave you here and call for help when I get back to town and find a phone signal. Hope there aren’t any coyotes nearby while I’m gone.”

“Okay, okay!” Her voice rose an octave in panic, and he heard her limp forward. She gingerly wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning against his back so he could catch her legs and lift her up. “This is so embarrassing…”

He rolled his eyes, slinging the bag back on his shoulder. “Whatever. Don’t squirm, and don’t stab me with your sword-nails.” He started off, pulling his flashlight out of his belt and clicking it on as they passed under the trees. “Who came up with that idea, anyway? Don’t rely on fingernails. I’ll teach you some damn self-defense if that’s what it takes.”

“...really?”

“Sure. You seem to need it, as prone to disaster as you are.”

She huffed, then quietened. “Well...thanks. And, um...thanks for catching me back there.”

“It’s fine.” He focused on the path, stepping over any areas that could make him lose his footing. Dusk settled into dark, and the sounds of night animals and insects rose like a chorus. “Did you tell me the same mermaid story you tell everyone?”

“Yep. Word for word.”

“Huh. I thought maybe you were setting me up this whole time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on. Killer mermaids singing for blood? After that weird shit I heard at the laundromat? You better not be pulling some prank.”

“I’m not!” Her voice over his shoulder sounded earnest. “I don’t think you really heard singing. You were probably just hearing the music from inside the laundromat.”

“I know what I heard, alright?” He stomped on a twig, snapping it. “That’s why I thought you were messing with me. This may sound stupid,” He braced his teeth against each other, regretting his words already. “But if sirens were real, it’s exactly what I’d expect them to sound like. And...for a second it was like I wasn’t myself, like I--” 

“It’s just a story.” Annette interrupted him. “Mermaids aren’t real.”

“I know that! But it’s important--someone’s using it as a cover for murder,” Felix snapped, feeling foolish. “Forget it. If I find out you’re pranking me you’ll be sorry.”

“I’m not--honest!”

Felix grunted in response, wishing he’d said nothing. Other than finally hearing the mermaid myth, this entire evening had been useless. He’d learned nothing about Ashe; he hadn’t even really tried. He’d planned on questioning her casually on the way back to town, but now… Annette’s feet bounced as he walked, occasionally knocking into nearby obstacles. She squeaked when her injured ankle smacked against a tree trunk. “Sorry,” he said, pulling the leg closer to angle the ankle in instead of out. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Annette assured him. “Honestly, I’m just impressed you’ve been able to go this long with someone on your back.”

“You should be. You’re heavy.”

She gasped, then thumped on his shoulder with her fist. “You--! That’s a horrible thing to say!”

“You’re noisy, too.”

“What?! Put me down, then!”

Felix smiled, hoisting her higher on his back. “Stay still or I’m docking your pay.”

She wailed, thumping his shoulder again. “You’re the worst! I hate you!”

————————————

“Who’s the lawyer?” Felix asked, staring at Lorenz Gloucester’s counsel through the one way window in the interrogation suite. 

“Kida Pallardó. Not a big legal name,” The officer standing to his right replied, her tone flat. Captain Edelgard had insisted that at least one GMP official accompany Felix and Sylvain through this morning’s questioning, and a seasoned officer named Shamir had volunteered to be an observer. Her taciturn silence was by far preferable to Lieutenant von Vestra’s disapproving glares, and she seemed to be knowledgeable about a wide variety of topics concerning Garreg Mach. “I looked into his background and found that he mostly deals with low-level felony cases.”

Felix made a noise of surprise in his throat. “Gloucester seemed to me like someone who would have gone after the top shark.”

“The Gloucesters may be an old family in Leicester, but their appearance of wealth is just that.” Shamir shook her head. “They used to have a fortune. Now they’re lucky to be able to live comfortably off of the remnants.”

“Probably why he’s here in the first place. The rich usually have ways of making unwanted people disappear without clumsy moves like written threats and anonymous fear tactics.”

Shamir didn’t reply. The door behind them opened, flooding the small room with light. “They’re ready,” Sylvain announced, sticking his head in through the gap. “It’s show time.”

Felix nodded, turning and picking the Ubert file up off a nearby table. It was heavy...so many leads and nothing to show. Surely Gloucester would turn this case around. He had to; something had to give. Anything.

Ashe Ubert had been missing for thirty-eight days. The chances of him being alive at this point were thinner than the paper on which his missing person posters were printed. 

Felix wouldn’t be cowed; he had faced worse odds. The goddess of fortune was fickle, but every roll of the dice reset her mood. Perhaps today she’d smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So exactly how much of the myth is complete BS? Or...is it? Idk what do you think?
> 
> Please comment with what percent sure (1-100%) you are that Felix had the most awkward boner when they were both about to fall off the fkn cliff. I know my answer. 
> 
> And now you know that Lorenz didn't meet his untimely end, at least yet. 
> 
> Just so y'all know, we're building nice and slow, but I won't drag it out too long. No worries; when the action happens it's gonna be like the Nino Train that just don't stop xD 
> 
> Thanks again for reading, lovelies! I can't wait to see you again next chapter!


End file.
